8EC0NH OOPY, 
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si i ^ n 



-LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

ShelfJl2>Pfe 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



POPE 
THE ILIAD OF HOMER 

BOOKS I. VI. XXII. XXIV. 



irHacmtUan's pocket lEnjglfe^ (tLlzmw. 



A Series of English Texts, edited for use in 

Secondary Schools, with Critical 

Introductions, Notes, etc. 



l6mo. Levanteen. 25c. each. 



Macaulay's Essay on Addison. 
Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 
Tennyson's The Princess. 
Eliot's Silas Marner. 
Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. 
Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. 
Burke's Speech on Conciliation. 
Pope's Homer's Iliad. 
Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. 
Shakespeare's Macbeth. 
Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. 
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. 



others to follow. 




ALEXANDER POPE 



POPE 
THE ILIAD OF HOMER 

BOOKS I. VI. XXII. XXIV. 



EDITED 

WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 

BY 

ALBEET H. SMYTH 

PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 

IN THE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL OF PHILADELPHIA 

MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1899 

All rights reserved 



* 







n> 



$ 



tf M> 



29423 

Copyright, 1899, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




Nortoooti ^ress 

J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 

Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 






CONTENTS 





PAGE 


Introduction . . . . 


vii 


Alexander Pope ...... 


xii 


Pope's Versification ..... 


. xxiv 


Pope's Place in Literature .... 


xxvii 


The Homeric Poems ..... 


xxxii 


Suggestions to Teachers .... 


. xlvii 


The Text 


1 


Notes ......... 


. 129 



INTRODUCTION 



G-oldwin Smith has called the translation of Homer 
into verse " the Polar Expedition of literature, always 
failing, yet still desperately renewed." The com- 
parison is just. It is indeed a famous and difficult 
voyage, undertaken by many brave and spirited adven- 
turers, but with complete success by none. The most 
accomplished scholars and poets have attempted to 
convey to the English reader the resounding lines of 
Homer, and the grace, vigor, and dignity of Homeric 
life. Chapman, Hobbes, Pope, Cowper, Derby, Meri- 
vale, Newman, Worsley, and Bryant have exhausted 
their scholarship and skill in the task. But Homer 
still defies modern reproduction. "His primeval sim- 
plicity is a dew of the dawn which can never be dis- 
tilled." 

Matthew Arnold's acute and suggestive essay " On 
Translating Homer" contains much practical advice, 
both in negative and positive counsels. Mr. Arnold 
believed that the translator should be penetrated by 

vii 



INTRODUCTION 

a sense of four qualities of his author — " that he is 
eminently rapid ; ' that he is eminently plain and 
direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in 
the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and 
in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct 
in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter 
and ideas ; and, finally, that he is eminently noble." 
For want of duly penetrating themselves with these 
qualities of Homer the translators have failed to 
render him ; Cowper fails in speed, ^ope jn jplainness 
and directness of style, Chapman in plainness and 
directness of ideas, and Newman in " nobleness." 

According to Mr. W. J. Courthope all English 
translations of Homer may be said to be comprised 
in three classes. The first is represented by Chapman 
and is the method followed by, Pope's predecessors; 
its object is to reproduce the sense of .the original. 
The second is represented by Cowper and is the 
method followed by every subsequent translator; its 
aim is " not only to reproduce Homer's sense as 
literally as possible, but also to reproduce his style 
in an epic manner peculiar to the English language." 
The third is the method of Pope. " Pope's purpose," 
says Mr. Courthope, " is to master the general sense of 
what he is about to render, and then to give this in 
such rhetorical forms as his own style requires, omit- 
ting and even adding thoughts at his pleasure," 



INTRODUCTION ix 

In every great poem there is a residuum which 
cannot be transferred from one language to another. 
In the case of Homer the vehicle of translation and 
the very manner of modern thinking and feeling are 
alien to the Homeric character. Chapman is faithful 
to his original, but his loose, archaic, fanciful style 
and long ballad-metre are out of keeping with the 
epic elevation of the Iliad. Cowper adopted the Mil- 
tonic blank verse as an English equivalent for the 
Greek hexameters, and believed that in his transla- 
tion he was adhering closely to his original, — " the 
matter found in me/' he said, " whether the reader 
like it or not, is found also in Homer ; and the matter 
not found in me, how much soever the reader may 
admire it, is found only in Mr. Pope." But Cowper 
failed, as Mr. Arnold said, to render the bright 
equable speed of Homer, and his translation is dull 
and monotonous. 

Pope was notoriously no Grecian.. He wrote to 
Parnell, who made him a present of the " Essay on 
Homer" which is prefixed to his translation, "You 
are a generous author, I a hackney scribbler ; you are 
a Grecian, and bred at a University, I a poor English- 
man of my own educating." But whatever his inac- 
curacies, Pope succeeded in fascinating the world with 
his " clarion couplets." He entered into the action 
of the poem and told the story with grace and anima- 



X INTRODUCTION 

tion. " A pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but it is not 
Homer," said the famous Greek scholar Richard 
Bentley. Nevertheless Pope had so caught the spirit 
of adventure, he sympathized so genuinely with the 
bravery of the heroes and entered with such delight 
into their exhortations and invectives, that his trans- 
lation leaped at once into popularity and has ever 
since commanded the praise that belongs to a great 
original poem. 

The sonnet is famous in which Keats, who knew no 
Greek though he was deeply imbued with the spirit 
of the Greeks, describes his rapture on first looking 
into Chapman's Homer : — 

" Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken, 

Or like stout Cortes when with eagle eyes 
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 

Looked at each other with a wild surmise — 
Silent — upon a peak in Darien." 

Many more readers, the younger ones particularly, 
remember the rapture of their first introduction to 
Homer in the ringing lines of Pope. Emerson used 
to say he would as soon think of swimming the 
Charles River every time he went to Boston as of 
reading all his books in their original tongue. Pope's 
translation is a great English classic, and it embalms 
forever the supreme ideality of Homer which veins all 



INTRODUCTION XI 

modern literature. Professor Jebb has a fine phrase 
for those precious things of art, whether literature, or 
sculpture, or architecture, that have been recovered 
from the ancient civilization. He calls them " salvage 
from centuries of ruin." The Homeric poems saved 
and transmitted across the centuries have been the 
foundation of human culture and " the very fountain- 
head of all pure poetic enjoyment, of all that is spon- 
taneous, simple, native, and dignified in life. 7 ' 

Frederic Harrison in his impatience at the neglect 
of Homer and the eternal works of genius wrote in 
his admirable little volume on The Choke of Books, 
"One knows — at least every schoolboy has known — 
that a passage of Homer, rolling along in the hexam- 
eter or trumpeted out by Pope, will give one a hot 
glow of pleasure and raise a finer throb in the pulse ; 
one knows that Homer is the easiest, most artless, ♦ 
most diverting of all poets ; that the fiftieth reading 
rouses the spirit even more than the first — and yet 
we find ourselves (we are all alike) painfully pshaw- 
ing over some new and uncut barley-sugar in rhyme, 
which a man in the street asked us if we had read, or 
it may be some learned lucubration about the site 
of Troy by some one we chanced to meet at dinner. 
It is an unwritten chapter in the history of the human 
mind, how this literary prurience after new print un- 
mans us for the enjoyment of the old songs chanted 



Xll INTRODUCTION 

forth in the sunrise of human imagination. To ask a 
man or woman who spends half a lifetime in sucking 
magazines and new poems to read a book of Homer 
would be like asking a butcher's boy to whistle 
e Adelaida.' The noises and sights and talk, the whirl 
and volatility of life around us, are too strong for us. 
A society which is forever gossiping in a sort of per- 
petual ' drum ? loses the very faculty of caring for 
anything but ' early copies ? and the last tale out. 
Thus like the tares in the noble parable of the sower, 
a perpetual chatter about books chokes the seed which 
is sown in the greatest books of the world." (Harri- 
son, Choice of Books, p. 29.) 

ALEXANDER POPE 

An interesting allegorical picture painted by Hogarth 
for the Elephant, a public house in Fenchurch Street, 
London, is now preserved in Sudeley Castle. It rep- 
resents the blindfolded goddess of fortune standing 
on a globe elevated above the earth, and holding in 
each hand an inverted bag, from which favors and 
evils are descending. Beneath is the fast-flowing 
stream of life, and upon the bridge stands the artist, 
while Richardson, the novelist, hands him a bag of 
gold. Advancing toward the place where the benig- 
nant showers of fortune are descending, Alexander 



ALEXANDER POPE xiii 

Pope appears in a car drawn by a swan with seven 
necks, emblematical of the trivium and quadrivium — 
the seven liberal arts and sciences. Following the 
car is a motley crew of critics, with faces distorted 
with passion, armed with sticks and spears, typical of 
the lances of calumny, with which they are about to 
assail the poet. Familiar faces are visible in the 
crowd ; Dennis, Theobald, Curl, and Mist are there, 
and Cibber the laureate, and Henley the orator. 

The poet who is thus between kind fortune and evil 
tongues is the translator of the Iliad, and the author 
of the Dunciad. By his translation he acquired a 
European reputation, a position of ease and indepen- 
dence, and that familiarity with the leading repre- 
sentatives of the English aristocracy which was one 
of the chief goals of his ambition. 

But his way of life was beset with quarrels. He 
was thoroughly versed in the art of making enemies, 
and seemed at times, so waspish was his tongue, so 
vitriolic his humor, to be " instinct with life malig- 
nant." His vanity, his untruthfulness, his irritability, 
and his arrogance may, with reason and with charity, 
be explained as proceeding from his physical infirmi- 
ties. His life, he said, was "one long disease." He 
was short of stature — a high chair necessary to bring 
him to the level of an ordinary dining-table ; his legs 
were thin and wrapped in many folds of linen, his 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

body so crooked that he was nicknamed an interroga- 
tion point, and he was tormented with constant head- 
aches. Few writers are more familiar to us through 
caricature and description. The dress and the habits 
of Dr. Johnson are not better known than Pope's 
paddings and stays, his wadded canvas jackets, and 
his twice doubled hose. His countenance drawn and 
pinched, his delicate features, his large blue expressive 
eyes, we know from Roubiliac's and Rysbrach's busts 
of him, and the portraits by Kneller, Jervas, Hoare, 
and Richardson. 

Pope was born in the city of London of an obscure 
Roman Catholic family, in the year of the glorious 
Revolution of 1688 (May 21). His father conducted 
the wholesale business of a linen merchant in Lom- 
bard Street, a street which to the English ear, as 
De Quincey says, possessed a degree of historical im- 
portance: "first, as the residence of those Lombards, 
or Milanese, who affiliated our infant commerce to the 
matron splendors of the Adriatic and the Mediterra- 
nean; next, as the central resort of those jewellers, or 
goldsmiths, as they were styled, who performed all the 
functions of modern bankers from the period of the 
Parliamentary War to the rise of the Bank of England." 

In 1700 the successful tradesman retired from busi- 
ness, to Binfield, in Windsor Forest, where the family 
lived upon an estate of twenty acres, and where a part 



ALEXANDER POPE XV 

of the house and an ancient row of Scottish firs still 
remain as in Pope's childhood. Very little is recorded 
of his early years. When eight years old he began to 
study Latin and Greek under the direction of a priest ; 
for a short time he studied at a Eoman Catholic school 
at Twyford, near Winchester, and afterwards under 
Thomas Deane at Marylebone. 

While his education was desultory and superficial, 
he read widely and constantly, " like a boy gathering 
flowers " ; indeed it was said that he did nothing else 
but write and read. His first acquaintance with 
Homer came in his twelfth year, through Ogilby's 
translation; he wrote an epic of Alexander between 
his thirteenth and fifteenth years ; and while still a 
child came up to London from Windsor Forest and 
gazed with reverence and enthusiasm upon the face of 
old John Dryden upon what must have been one of 
his last appearances at Will's Coffee-house. 

Among Pope's early acquaintances and patrons were 
Sir William Trumbull, with whom he rode out every 
day ; William Walsh, who recommended Pope to make 
correctness his study and aim; and Wycherly, forty- 
eight years his senior, from whom he learned much of 
fashion and of wit. The Catholic boy, without name 
or rank or fortune, was honored and caressed because 
of his single-hearted devotion to literature. 

Sir William Trumbull encouraged him to write the 



XVI INTRODUCTION 

" Pastorals/ 7 which Jacob Tonson, the publisher, issued 
in 1709 in a volume of " Miscellany," which began 
with the pastorals of Ambrose Philips and ended 
with those of Pope. According to his own account 
Pope was but sixteen years old when these poems 
were written, but all his assertions with regard to 
himself are to be received with caution, as it is well 
known " that he systematically antedated his composi- 
tions in order to obtain credit for precocity." With 
his introduction to literary and aristocratic society 
Pope affected the tone of Will's Coffee-house. The 
chief literary influences of the time proceeded from the 
coffee-houses; the politicians met at the St. James's, 
the critics at Will's, and the scholars at the Grecian. 
The clubs, a little later, took the place of the coffee- 
houses ; and with the development of party spirit arose 
a demand for facile and fertile literary brains to aid 
the party leaders. Addison, who had been one of the 
society at Will's, gathered about him a party of Whig 
pamphleteers and poets who held their meetings at 
Button's, and who were called "the little senate." 
Pope became acquainted with Addison and his circle, 
and with Swift, after the publication of the " Essay 
upon Criticism" (1711), in which he presented in verse 
his reflections upon the principles of his art. Addison 
praised the work in the Spectator, December 20, 1711, 
but regretted " some strokes of personality " in the 



ALEXANDER POPE xvii 

poem. Pope immediately wrote to Steele acknow- 
ledging the praise and promising to amend the objec- 
tionable matter, and Steele in turn introduced Pope 
to Addison. His next poem, " Windsor Forest," mod- 
elled upon " Cooper's Hill," appeared in 1713. It was 
animated by a Tory spirit, anticipated the Peace of 
Utrecht, and brought Pope the friendship of Swift. 
He soon became a member of the Scriblerus Club, and 
was upon intimate terms with Gay, Parnell, Arbuthnot, 
Congreve, Atterbury, and Oxford. 

The " Rape of the Lock " — " the most exquisite 
monument of playful fancy that universal literature 
offers " — was published m 1714, though part of it 
had appeared two years before. The " amorous cause " 
of the "dire offence" depicted in the poem was an 
incident that concerned two prominent members of 
Roman Catholic society. Lord Petre, a young man 
of twenty, had clipped a lock of hair from the head 
of Arabella Fermor, a celebrated beauty of the day, 
and John Caryll — a person of some authority with 
the Roman Catholic party — suggested to Pope to 
celebrate the petty quarrel in a poem, and so to recon- 
cile the pair. The mock-heroic poem instantly won 
popular favor, and three thousand copies of it were 
sold in four days. It was Sir William Trumbull who 
first suggested to Pope the translation of the Iliad, 
April 9, 1708. But Pope knew no Greek and had 



XVlll INTRODUCTION 

scarcely the courage for the task. In the autumn of 
171 3, however, he announced his intention of trans- 
lating Homer. Lord Lansdowne and Joseph Addison 
expressed their gratification, and wrote to him encour- 
agingly. In November (1713) Bishop Kennet, describ- 
ing in his diary an occasion when Dean Swift led the 
conversation, says : " Then he instructed a young 
nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope 
(a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer 
into English verse, for which he must have them all 
subscribe ; for, says he, the author shall not begin to 
print till I have a thousand guineas for him." 

A thousand guineas was a great sum for any literary 
enterprise to yield, but as the sequel proved Swift 
underestimated the extraordinary success of this par- 
ticular undertaking. The work was designed on a 
magnificent scale ; it was to be printed in six sumptu- 
ous volumes at a guinea a volume. Pope was to have 
all the subscriptions, and a copyright from the pub- 
lisher, Bernard Lintot, of £200 for each volume. The 
number of subscribers to the Iliad was 574, and the 
number of copies subscribed for was 654. Conse- 
quently by the subscription Pope obtained six times 
654 guineas, or slightly more than £4000, which, 
with the copyright (£1200 for the work) swelled 
Pope's profits upon the transaction to £5300. The 
translation of the Odyssey, likewise published by 



ALEXANDER POPE xix 

subscription, was only a trifle less remunerative. 
The colossal labors of the venture were lightened 
by a partnership in toil; Pope "let off/ 7 as De 
Quincey says, to sub-contractors several portions of 
the undertaking, like modern contractors for a loan. 
Broome and Fenton, the collaborators, between them 
translated twelve books, and Pope undertook the other 
twelve. Fenton received £300, and Broome £500. By 
the subscription to the Odyssey Pope received £3000 
(574 copies subscribed for at a guinea for each of the 
five quarto volumes), and for the copyright £600 addi- 
tional from Lintot, the publisher. 

"The jingling of the guinea" has a significance in 
this instance which renders the commercial aspect of 
the publication peculiarly interesting. 

In the first place, it was " unquestionably the greatest 
literary labor, as to profit, ever executed, not except- 
ing the most lucrative of Sir Walter Scott's, if due 
allowance be made for the altered value of money" 
(De Quincey). And in the second place, it secured 
ease and independence to Pope for the rest of his life. 
He bought an annuity of some £500, and a long lease 
of an estate of five acres upon the Thames, at Twick- 
enham, where he lived until his death, cultivating his 
gardens and lampooning his adversaries. 

Pope was at first oppressed with the magnitude of 
his task. He said to Spence: "In the beginning of 



XX INTRODUCTION 

my translating the Iliad I wished anybody would 
hang me a hundred times. It sat so heavily on my 
mind at first that I often used to dream of it, and do 
sometimes still." 

To Jervas, he wrote, when in full career, July 28, 
1714: "What can you expect from a man who has 
not talked these five days ? Who is withdrawing his 
thoughts as far as he can, from all the present world, 
its customs and its manners, to be fully possessed and 
absorbed in the past. When people talk of going to 
church, I think of sacrifices and libations ; when I see 
the parson, I address him as Chryses, priest of Apollo ; 
and instead of the Lord's Prayer, I begin : — 

' God of the silver bow,' etc. 

While you in the world are concerned about the Prot- 
estant succession, I consider only how Menelaus may 
recover Helen, and the Trojan war be put to a speedy 
conclusion." 

Pope was not a scholar ; his knowledge of languages, 
ancient and modern, was maimed and imperfect. Vol- 
taire said he could hardly read French, and spoke not 
one syllable of the language. De Quincey avowed his 
belief in Pope's thorough ignorance of Greek when he 
commenced his translation. He mastered the sense of 
the original from the English versions of his prede- 
cessors, Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby, and from the 



ALEXANDER POPE xxi 

French translations of La Vallerie and Dacier, and the 
Latin version of Eobanus Hessius. When it became 
necessary to consult the commentators and critics who, 
said Pope, "lie entrenched in the ditches, and are 
secure only in the dirt they have heaped about them 
with great pains in the collecting it," he called upon 
Parnell for assistance who wrote for the translation 
an "essay upon Homer." The notes of Eustathius, 
the Archbishop of Thessalonica, were translated for 
him by Broome, and Jortin, a young Cambridge 
scholar. 

The social success of the work was also remarkable. 
Pope was invited to the country houses of Lord Har- 
court, Lord Bathurst, and Lord Digby, and in April, 
1716, he moved to Chiswick "under the wing of my 
Lord Burlington " in order to be near the aristocratic 
society of the Thames. John Gay's poem " Mr. Pope's 
Welcome from Greece" names pleasantly the distin- 
guished people who congratulated Pope upon the 
completion of his translation. He entertained at 
Twickenham in his thrifty way, " watching his butler 
very sharply, and by reason of his infirmities, was 
very measured in his wine-drinking. Swift, who used 
to come and pass days with him, may have made the 
glasses jingle : and there were other worthy friends 
who, when they came for a dinner, kept the poet in a 
tremor of unrest. The Prince of Wales, after the 



XXll INTRODUCTION 

Georges of Hanover had come in, used sometimes to 
honor the poet with a visit ; and the rich and power- 
ful Bolingbroke — what time he lived at Battersea — 
used to come up in his barge, landing at the garden 
entrance — as most great visitors did — and discuss 
with him those faiths, dogmas, truisms, and splendid 
generalities which afterward took form in the famous 
Essay on Man." Y 

The rost of Pope's life is little else than a record of 
" disease, publication, and quarrels." His satirical 
powers found their fullest exercise in the Dunciad 
(1728-9), in which he bestowed all his venom upon his 
libellers, reviewers, and rivals. The professed action 
of the poem is " the restoration of the reign of Chaos 
and Night by the ministry of Dulness, in the removal 
of her imperial seat from the City to the Polite 
World." The Hero of the Poem — the arch-ruler of 
this realm of Dulness — is Theobald, — "poor, pid- 
dling Tibbald," — to whose poverty and dulness an 
entire book of the Dunciad is devoted, and who is 
exalted to this bad eminence solely because he had 
ventured in his Shakespeare Restored to point out 



1 Quoted from D. G. Mitchell, English Lands, Letters, and 
Kings, Vol. III., 1895. A work of rare attractiveness, in which the 
great figures of literature are made to live again by virtue of the 
author's acute sympathy, intimate knowledge, and faultless Eng- 
lish. 



ALEXANDER POPE xxiii 

the blunders that Pope had perpetrated in his Edition 
of Shakespeare (1725). This publication marks the 
culmination of his career ; to use De Quincey's com- 
parison : " like a hornet, who is said to leave his sting 
in the wound, and afterwards to languish away, Pope 
felt so greatly exhausted by the efforts connected with 
the Dunciad that he prepared his friends to expect 
for the future only an indolent companion and a 
hermit." Time, too, was dissolving the circle of 
his friends. Atterbury, the attainted and banished 
Bishop, died in 1732 ; Gay died suddenly at the close 
of the same year, and the fatal blight of madness was 
possessing Dean Swift, who from the beginning of 
their acquaintance maintained unbroken a strange 
affectionate friendship for the sensitive crippled poet. 
His mother, whom he had tenderly loved and watched 
over, and who in her senile dotage recognized no face 
but that of her son, died in 1733 at a great age, at 
Twickenham. His writings now were half-moral, half- 
satirical ; and his philosophy and poetry in The Epistle 
to Lord Burlington, Essay on Man, Epistle to Arbuthnot, 
etc., were blended in a style whose burnished lustre is 
unequalled in literature. 

His last effort was the fourth book of the Dunciad 
(1742), the conclusion of which is one of the greatest 
accomplishments of his life. The " long disease " was 
now drawing to an end; he became weak and, at 



XXIV INTRODUCTION 

times, delirious; Lord Bolingbroke and a few stanch 
friends sustained him. He died May 30, 1744. 

POPE'S VERSIFICATION 

The rhymed couplet — commonly called the classical 
couplet — was the prevalent poetic measure of the age 
of Dryden and the age of Pope. That measure is 
generally recognized as a reform of the license and ex- 
travagance that marked the unregulated flow of verse 
in the late Elizabethan days. It belonged as natu- 
rally to the classical or " correct " manner in poetry, 
as did the preceding metres to the romantic man- 
ner. The varied stanza metres of the Elizabethans 
declined at length into the disorderly blank verse of 
the dramatists. The literary style retained its vehe- 
mence when the emotions that had created it had 
subsided. The genuine utterance of Marlowe and 
Shakespeare became the inane rant of such writers as 
Cyril Tourneur. Desperately striving to maintain 
the traditions of the great age, the post-Elizabethan 
poets strained their plots and their language to supply 
the place of failing originality. They stimulated, 
with impossible horrors and violent diction, the jaded 
public taste until stimulants ceased to compel even 
a momentary spasm of attention. The change that 
then took place by which poetry lost its violence, and 



POPE'S VERSIFICATION XXV 

a new and different order began in the technic of 
verse, has been defined as the formal change from en- 
jambed lines to the " classical couplet." Vers enjambe, 
or " overflow " verse, as it has been proposed to call 
that style of versification in which the thought flows 
loosely on through the verses to its natural close, is 
the distinctive note of all romantic poetry. 

The "classical couplet" restrains the lawlessness 
and violence of intemperate verse by confining the 
sense within the narrow boundaries of the distich. 
The history of the change would involve an examina- 
tion of the literary chronology of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. It must be sufficient here to refer the student 
to Edmund Waller and to George Sandys for the 
earliest correct use of the couplet and to recommend 
a comparison of Dryden's verse, in which the enjambe- 
ment is often to be found, with the polished, perfected 
couplets of Pope, unmixed with triplets, or Alexan- 
drines, or vers enjambe. "Pope," says Professor 
Saintsbury, " sacrifices every attraction of form to the 
couplet — light, bright, glittering, varied in a manner 
almost impossible to account for, tipped ever with the 
neatest, smartest, sharpest rhyme, and volleying on 
the dazzled, though at times at any rate satiated, 
reader a sort of salvo of feux-d' artifice, skipping, 
crackling, scattering color and sound all round and 
about him. If we take a paragraph of Milton's with 



XXVI INTRODUCTION 

one of Pope's, and compare the apparent variety of 
the constituent stones of the one building with the 
apparent monotony of those of the other, the differ- 
ence may be at first quite bewildering. One of Dry- 
den's, between the two, will partly, though not 
entirely, solve the difficulty by showing how the law 
of the prose paragraph, that of meaning, is brought 
to supply the place of that of the pure poetic para- 
graph, the composition of sound and music." 

The reader of Pope will be struck by the conven- 
tional phraseology, and the evident artifice in the 
choice of words. He is neither wayward in his verse, 
nor unexpected in his phrase. His poetry is strictly 
artificial, rhetorical, mundane. It exhibits the same 
cold, glittering monotony, "like frosting round a 
cake," says Mr. Lowell. 

Neither poetry nor prose could long be confined 
within the narrow limits appointed by the masters 
of the classical vogue. The artificialities ceased, and 
romanticism began again with Gray and Cowper, and 
the eyes of poetry were again opened to the great 
world, and men began to look curiously at the flower 
they plucked, and hands were reached into the roman- 
tic past, and Percy collected his Reliques of Ancient 
English Poetry, and prepared the way for Chatterton, 
and for the Lyrical Ballads, and for greater things 
beyond. 



POPE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE xxvii 



POPE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 

(From the Life of Alexander Pope, by W. J. Courthope, 
pp. 353-357.) 

The poetry of Pope occupies a central position 
between two fluctuating movements of English taste. 
The classical school of the eighteenth century, of 
which he was the pioneer, was a protest against what 
has been rightly called the metaphysical school of the 
seventeenth century, just as the romantic school, 
which arose in the early part of the present century, 
was a reacting movement in art against the critical 
principles of the classical school. We ought not to 
regard the differing characteristics of these poetical 
groups as so many isolated phenomena : each is bound 
to the other by a historical connection, the full sig- 
nificance of which must be determined by reference to 
the course of English poetry as a whole. In other 
words, to appreciate the true meaning of the conflicts 
respecting the principles of poetry that have divided, 
and still divide, rival schools of criticism in this 
country, it is necessary to investigate the origin of 
the idea of Nature, which each party holds to be the 
foundation of Art. . . . 

Greek poetry, both in its practice and its theory, 
was based on the direct imitation of nature; that is 
to say, its subject-matter was, for the most part, de- 



XXVlli INTRODUCTION 

rived from its own mythology, and was presented in 
forms which, to a great extent, arose out of the popu- 
lar and religious institutions underlying all Greek 
social life. From these purely natural forms Aris- 
totle reasoned to general principles which, according 
to him, were the laws of the Art of Poetry. The 
Roman poets and critics, adopting Greek models, car- 
ried them into all countries in which Latin culture 
predominated, so that before the fall of the Eoman 
empire what may be called a common sense of Nature, 
and common rules of rhetoric, prevailed wherever the 
art of poetry was practised in Europe. 

The irruption of the barbarians obliterated like a 
deluge the landmarks of ancient criticism ; the Latin 
language itself was only saved from destruction in the 
ark of the Christian Church. All the reasoning of 
Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian seemed, like the 
Roman empire itself, to have completely perished: 
for whole centuries the voice of poetry was silent in 
the Western World. In course of time new languages 
began to spring out of the decomposition of Latin, 
and, as was natural, their infancy was cradled in new 
forms of the poetic art. But the idea of Nature re- 
flected in these forms was no longer one derived from 
direct imitation. A fresh conception of Man's rela- 
tion to God, of the life beyond the grave, and, conse- 
quently, of the material universe, had come into being 



POPE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE xxix 

with the Christian Religion. And not only had 
Christianity supervened, bnt upon Christianity had 
been grafted Theology, and on Theology the Scholastic 
Philosophy. When we consider that the reappear- 
ance of Poetry is almost contemporaneous with the 
appearance of the Schoolmen, we can hardly doubt 
that much of the intellectual subtlety distinguishing 
the art of the Provencals was derived from the same 
atmosphere which inspired the five great doctors of the 
Mediaeval Church. Other influences, no doubt, con- 
tributed largely to the creation of the new Idea of 
Nature. The prevalence of feudal institutions, the 
enthusiasm of the Crusades, the neighborhood of 
Oriental thought, represented by the Arabs in Spain, 
and by the philosophy of Averroes and Avicenna in- 
corporated in Christian theology; all this, operating 
on minds learning to express themselves in novel forms 
of language, and unfettered by the critical principles 
of the ancient world, encouraged a new and vigorous 
growth of poetical conception. Hence the multitude 
of forms in which the poets of that early age manipu- 
lated what to us appears an extraordinary triviality 
of matter. Sirvente, Sonnet, Ballad, Virelay, Ten- 
son, with all their subtle and scientific combinations 
of harmony, convey to us ideas of Nature far more 
shadowy than do the odes of Horace; nevertheless it 
is evident that for the audiences of the Middle Ages 



xxx INTRODUCTION 

they possessed not only music, but warmth and 
meaning. 

In time the mediaeval idea of Nature ceased to com- 
mend itself to the general sense of Europe. The 
wars between Christian and Paynim ceased; the wide- 
spread system of Feudalism waned before the advance 
of centralizing Monarchy; the Reformation divided 
the Western World into two opposing camps; and, 
with the Balance of Power that began to emerge from 
the chaos, appeared the first rudiments of Inter- 
national Law. Yet so vigorous and trenchant were 
the forms of Mediaeval Art, that they long survived 
the dissolution of the social conditions out of which 
they originally sprang. Dryden has well said that 
all poets have their family descents. And if any- 
thing is plain, it is that the poets of the seventeenth 
century, in the various countries of Europe, are di- 
rectly and lineally descended from mediaeval masters 
of the art. In Italy the long-lived family of the 
Petrarchists echoed faithfully, if monotonously, the 
music of their first ancestor; in Spain Cultorists and 
Conceptualists aimed at the same subtleties of thought 
and language that may be found in the original man- 
ner of the Troubadours; Voiture in Prance amused 
the society of the Hotel Eambouillet with rondeau, 
ballad, and sonnet, the prototypes of which had 
helped to dispel the ennui of the feudal castle in the 



POPE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE xxxi 

intervals of the Crusades; Saccharissas and Castaras 
in England emulated the fame of Beatrice and Laura; 
Quarles meditated his "Emblems/' and Phineas 
Eletcher his " Purple Island," just as if the allegori- 
cal interpretation of Nature still held the field, and 
Bacon had not succeeded to. the throne of St. Thomas 
Aquinas. 

Meantime, however, the foundations of a new criti- 
cal tradition were being silently laid. The old clas- 
sical principle of the direct imitation of Nature, 
rising from its ashes, was everywhere reasserting its 
authority. We may fairly boast that the honor of 
having first revived the practice of this great princi- 
ple belongs to an Englishman. Dante and Petrarch 
indeed show the influence of classical forms in their 
language, but the cast of their thought is purely medi- 
aeval: the earliest poem which embodies the genuine 
classical spirit is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. After- 
wards Ariosto applied the imitative principle, with 
the perfection of taste, in the Orlando Furioso and 
Cervantes in Don Quixote: it found among the 
French a dramatic exponent in Moliere and a poetical 
critic in Boileau. In this country Shakespeare made 
his Hamlet commend the principle to the players; 
and Dryden gave it a new application in the historical 
portrait-painting of his "Absalom and Achitophel." 
But the English poet who first consciously recognized 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

the value of the truth as a canon of criticism, and up- 
held it by a regular system of reasoning, was undoubt- 
edly Pope. 

THE HOMERIC POEMS 

A national epic is found in the early literature of 
every people tracing their life and being back to a 
primitive civilization. The Nibelungen Lied, in Ger- 
man; the Kalevala in Finnish; the Mahabharata and 
Ramayana in Sanskrit, and the Beowulf in Old Eng- 
lish are such epics. They embody the mythological 
and legendary ideas of the people among whom they 
originate; in sense and in metre they are indigenous. 
The Homeric poems — the Iliad and the Odyssey — 
are the greatest epics of the world, and they reflect 
the earliest features of Aryan civilization. Through 
all the ages these poems have retained their high 
place in the estimation of the world and have been 
the steadfast foundation of all culture. The secret 
of their hold upon humanity through their riches, 
beauty, and power has been well expressed in the 
ardent admiration of Henry Nelson Coleridge : — 

" Greek — the shrine of the genius of the Old 
World; as universal as our race, as individual as 
ourselves; of infinite flexibility, of indefatigable 
strength, with the complication and -the distinctness 
of Nature herself; to which nothing was vulgar, from 






THE HOMERIC POEMS xxxiii 

which nothing was excluded; speaking to the ear like 
Italian, speaking to the mind like English; with 
words like pictures, with words like the gossamer 
film of the summer; at once the variety and pictu- 
resqueness of Homer, the gloom and the intensity of 
iEschylus; not compressed to the closest by Thu- 
cydides, not fathomed to the bottom by Plato, not 
sounding with all its thunders, nor lit up with all 
its ardors even under the Promethean touch of 
Demosthenes." 

The Homeric world as revealed in these ancient 
documents of Hellenic life has been well described by 
Professor Jebb in his " Introduction to Homer," and 
from his account the following brief remarks are 
drawn. 

The earth, as it is conceived in Homer, is a large 
flat disc surrounded by the great river Oceanus; of 
the countries of the earth Homer knows only those 
which are neighbor to the iEgean Sea — Greece and 
Northwestern Asia Minor. The Greeks are called 
Achaeans, Argives, and Danai. " Achaean Argos" 
denotes the whole, or a great part, of the Pelopon- 
nesus, and "Pelasgian Argos " indicates Thessaly. 
Peloponnesus and Thessaly are names which do not 
occur in Homer. Hellas denotes merely a district in 
the region afterwards called Thessaly. The topog- 
raphy of the Troad is more clearly marked. The 



XXXI V INTRODUCTION 

country afterwards called Lydia is "Mseonia," iden- 
tified by the mention of Mount Tmolus. The islands 
of Crete and Rhodes, Tenedos, Imbros, Samothrace, 
Lesbos, and Lemnos are named. "To the north 
there is a dim rumor of nomads who roam the plains 
beyond the Thracian hills, living on the milk of their 
mares; yet the name 'Sythian ' is not found. To the 
south there is a rumor of 'swart faces' (iEthiopes), 
'remotest of men'; and of pigmies, who dwell hard 
by the banks of the river Ocean" (Jebb). Egypt is 
noticed only in a chance reference to Thebes. "Phoe- 
nician " occurs only once, and Tyre is not named at all. 
Homer's government is a monarchy; the king (Basi- 
leus) rules by divine right; he is Zeus-nurtured, that 
is, "upheld and enlightened by Zeus." The king is 
leader in war, supreme judge, president of the coun- 
cil of elders and of the popular assembly. A demesne 
is assigned to him from the public land, and he dis- 
charges functions of public hospitality. The rights 
of the people rest upon judicial precedents which are 
upheld by the king. In Homer there is no word for 
law. The king convenes a council consisting of a 
small number of elders, who determine upon the busi- 
ness of state. In the Iliad the council is composed 
of a few prominent chiefs, or kings, who hold the 
same relations to Agamemnon as local elders to a 
local king. 



THE HOMERIC POEMS XXXV 

The gods are near to men and are easily invoked by 
prayer or placated by sacrifice. "The ties of the 
family are sacred in every relation." The Iliad has 
several pictures of pure and tender conjugal affection. 
Slavery was the doom of prisoners of war. Slaves 
were employed in the house or on the land, but there 
were also free hired laborers. 

Man in Homer wears a shirt, or tunic (chiton), and 
a mantle (chlaina) ; woman wears a robe (peplus) 
reaching to her feet, and girdled at the waist by a 
zone, " On her head she sometimes wears a high, stiff 
coif, over the middle of which passes a many-colored 
twisted band, while a golden fillet glitters at the front. 
Either from the coif, or directly from the crown of 
the head, a veil falls over shoulders and back." 

The chief articles of Homeric armor are the shield, 
the greaves, the belt, the helmet, the spear, and the 
sword. The shield was usually round and composed 
of several layers of oxhide covered with ornamented 
metal; the greaves were defensive panoply of leather 
or soft metal wrapped completely about the leg. 
"The most elaborate work of art in Homer is the 
shield of Achilles. The central part of the shield 
was adorned with representations of earth, heaven, 
sea, sun, moon, and stars. The outer rim of the 
shield represented the earth-girdling river, Oceanus. 
Between the boss and the rim successive concentric 



XXX VI INTRODUCTION 

bands displayed various scenes of human life : a be- 
sieged city; a city at peace; ploughing; reaping; 
vintage; oxen attacked by lions; sheep at pasture in 
a glen; youths and maidens dancing." 

.There is no reference in Homer to coined money. 
The ordinary measure of value is the ox; a female 
slave is worth four oxen, a suit of " golden" armor 
is worth a hundred. 

The Homeric place of the dead is "the house of 
Hades." Between the earth and Hades is an inter- 
mediate region of gloom, called Erebus. Beyond 
Hades is Tartarus, the prison of the Titans. 

The Homeric poems were publicly recited by rhap- 
sodes as early as 600 b.c. And the poems are found 
at an early date diffused throughout the Greek world. 
At Athens there was a special ordinance, probably 
as old as 600 b.c, prescribing that Homer should be 
recited at the festival of the Great Panathensea, once 
in every four years. The earliest reference to Homer 
in literature is in a lost poem of Callinus, who flour- 
ished about 690 b.c. Pausanias reports Callinus as 
believing Homer to be the author of an epic called 
Thebais. The earliest quotation from Homer is made 
by Simonides of Ceos, born 566 b.c, who quotes 77. 
VI. 148 as the utterance of "the man of Chios." 

The editions of Homer in the Alexandrian Library 
were chiefly of two classes, those known by the names 



THE HOMERIC POEMS XXXV11 

of individual editors and those known by the names 
of cities. When cited collectively the latter are called 
the civic editions. It is believed that the copies 
known to the Alexandrians rested upon an older vul- 
gate text, the sources of which are unknown. Zeno- 
dotus, an Ephesian, librarian of the Alexandrian 
Museum, in the third century B.C., published a recen- 
sion of Homer and a Homeric glossary. His pupil, 
Aristophanes of Byzantium, also published a recension 
of Homer. Aristarchus of Samothrace was a pupil 
of Aristophanes and succeeded him as librarian of the 
Alexandrian Library. He published two editions of 
the text of Homer. Professor Jebb notes three gen- 
eral aspects of his work : he carefully studied the 
Homeric usage of words, he gave full weight to 
manuscript authority, and he commented on the sub- 
ject-matter of Homer. A rival school of Homeric 
interpretation sprang up at Pergamum in Mysia, 
where Crates, a contemporary of Aristarchus, and 
librarian of Pergamum, published Homeric commen- 
taries. He is said to have been the champion of 
"anomaly" as Aristarchus was the champion of 
"analogy"; that is, the Alexandrian school, repre- 
sented by Aristarchus, was essentially a school of 
accurate grammatical scholarship, and insisted upon 
the strict application of rules to the forms of words, 
while Crates dwelt more upon the exceptions. 



xxxviii INTROD UCTIOJST 

The results of the inquiry into the ancient study of 
Homer warrant a general conclusion of the highest 
importance in regard to the whole existing text of 
Homer. In the words of Professor Jebb it is as fol- 
lows : " The editions used by Aristarchus represented 
an older common text, or vulgate, and one of these 
editions was that of Antimachus (circ. 410 B.C.), in 
which the variations appear to have been only of the 
same small kind as in the rest. Hence there is the 
strongest reason for believing that the common text 
of 200 b.c. w£nt back at least to the fifth century b.c. 
But Aristarchus caused no breach in the transmission 
of the common text. He made no wild conjecture or 
violent dislocations. He handed on what he had re- 
ceived, with such help towards exhibiting it in a purer 
form as careful collation and study could give ; and so, 
with comparatively slight modifications, it descended 
to the age from which our MSS. date. Our common 
text, then, we may reasonably believe, is fundamen- 
tally the same as that which was known to Aristar- 
chus; and therefore, in all probability, it rests on 
the same basis as the text which was read by Plato 
and Thucydides." (Jebb, Introduction to Homer, p. 
102.) 

Two questions must still be referred to: the his- 
torical basis of the story of the Iliad and the vexed 
problem of the authorship of the Homeric poems. 



THE HOMERIC POEMS xxxix 

Concerning the first, Walter Leaf says, in the Com- 
panion to the Iliad, "The poem may give us a true 
picture of Achaian Greece and its civilization, and 
yet be no proof that the armies of Agamemnon fought 
beneath the walls of Troy. But here, again, the 
discoveries of recent years, and notably those of 
Schliemann at Hissarlik, have tended, on the whole, 
to confirm the belief that there is a historic reality 
behind the tale of Troy. Two things seem to be 
clearly made out, First, the Achaian empire was suf- 
ficiently powerful to collect a great armament and 
transport it across the seas for a distant war. Here, 
as in so many unexpected joints, we get light from 
Egypt; for it seems to be made out that about 1500 b.c. 
the Achaians were allies of the Libyans in a great 
invasion of Egypt; possibly colonies of them were 
actually established there. If the Achaians could 
invade Egypt, there is no antecedent improbability in 
their invading Troas. Secondly, at the very point 
where tradition placed the city of Troy, there actually 
was a town of unknown antiquity and of considerable 
power. Thus two of the conditions, which have been 
gravely doubted previously, are now shown to have 
actually existed, and there is no a priori improbability, 
much less an impossibility, in such a Trojan expedi- 
tion as the Iliad describes. But we can say positively 
— if indeed it is not sufficiently evident on the face 



xl INTRODUCTION 

of it — that the details of the Homeric story cannot 
possibly be historic. To take one main point, it is a 
fundamental assumption of the whole Iliad that the 
Greeks and Trojans are essentially one people in civi- 
lization and belief, in dress, manners, and language. 
Hardly here and there, as, for instance, in the polyg- 
amy of Priam, do we find traces of non-Greek habits. 
But this likeness cannot have existed between the 
inhabitants of Mykenai and Troy — the Troy of His- 
sarlik. The inhabitants of Hissarlik had a culture 
of their own, but it was entirely different from, and 
inferior to, that of Mykenai. The siege of Troy was 
a conflict of two races and two cultures with nothing 
in common. The description of it in the Iliad is 
purely imaginary — a poetic idealization of an event 
which can at most have been known by distant tra- 
dition. Even if Agamemnon and Achilles ever really 
lived, the Iliad can no more be taken as a proof that 
they fought before Troy, than the romances of the 
Middle Ages can prove that Charlemagne headed a 
crusade and fought before Jerusalem." 

There have always been sceptics who have doubted 
the unity of composition of the Iliad. As early as 1689, 
Bentley's confidence was shaken by signs of serious 
tampering with the text of Homer. Wood's Essay on 
the Genius of Homer, first published in 1769, and re- 
issued in Germany in 1773, reiterated Bentley's hon- 



THE HOMERIC POEMS xli 

est doubts. "Finally, in 1795, Wolf marched forth in 
complete mail, a sheaf of sceptical arrows rattling on 
his harness, all of which he pointed and feathered, 
giving by his learning, or by masculine sense, buoy- 
ancy to their flight, so as to carry them into every 
corner of literary Europe. Then began the row, — 
then the steam was mounted which has never since 
subsided, — and then opened upon Germany a career 
of scepticism which, from the very first, promised to 
be contagious." (De Quincey.) Without revolving 
the arguments contained in Wolf's Prolegomena, and 
the immense critical literature that has followed upon 
it, it may not be amiss to point out the order and 
relationship of the books of the Iliad according to the 
latest scholarship. The subject of the epic is the 
"Wrath of Achilles, 7 ' and this main, or central story 
is contained in the following books : I. The Quarrel 
of Agamemnon and Achilles; XI. The Rout of the 
Greeks; XVI. The Exploits and Death of Patroklos; 
XXII. The Slaying of Hector. 

The tale is not absolutely complete, for scattered 
fragments found in the intervening books are needed 
to round out the narrative. The first book is complete 
in itself: Zeus has promised to avenge Achilles and 
proceeds to bring the Greeks and Trojans into a 
pitched battle in order that the Greeks may be de- 
feated. The way by which this is brought about is 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

described in the second book : Zeus sends a false dream 
to Agamemnon to tell him that the hour of victory is 
at hand, while to the Trojans he sends Iris with a 
command to march at once into the plain. The close 
of Book XI. leaves the Greeks in a state of defeat 
and flight, deprived of all their leaders except Aias, 
who still remains to cover the retreat. But kt the 
beginning of Book XVI. we find him defending the 
ships. The intervening explanatory narrative is to 
be found at the end of XV., which fits on to the end 
of XI. The interval between XVI. and XXII. is 
more difficult to bridge. Book XVI. has brought us 
to the death of Patroklos. In Book XXII. we have 
Achilles in the full career of revenge. The inter- 
mediate action is accounted for in the following 
manner by Walter Leaf : " In the original story the 
body of Patroklos was not saved at all; the bringing 
of the news of his death to Achilles in the beginning 
of XVIII. , in some form or another, probably stood 
in the oldest form of the poem, and was immediately 
followed by the issuing of Achilles from the camp as 
told at the end of XIX." 

With splendid eloquence De Quincey describes the 
character and argues the unity of this stupendous 
story of the Wrath of Achilles : — - 

"Now, this unity is sufficiently secured if it should 
appear that a considerable section of the Iliad — and 



THE HOMERIC POEMS xliii 

that section by far the most full of motion, of human 
interest, of tragical catastrophe, and through which 
runs, as the connecting principle, a character the 
most brilliant, magnanimous, and noble, that pagan 
morality could conceive — was, and must have been, 
the work and conception of a single mind. Achilles 
revolves through that section of the Iliad in a series 
of phases, each of which looks forward and backward 
to all the rest. He travels like the sun through his 
diurnal course. We see him first of all rising upon 
us as a princely councillor for the welfare of the 
Grecian host. We see him atrociously insulted in 
this office; yet, still, though a king, and unused to 
opposition, and boiling with youthful blood, neverthe- 
less controlling his passion, and retiring in clouded 
majesty. Even thus, though having now so excellent 
a plea for leaving the army, and though aware of the 
early death that awaited him if he stayed, he disdains 
to profit by the evasion. We see him still living in 
the tented field, and generously unable to desert those 
who had so insultingly deserted Mm. We see him in 
a dignified retirement, fulfilling all the duties of re- 
ligion, friendship, hospitality; and, like an accom- 
plished man of taste, cultivating the arts of peace. 
We see him so far surrendering his wrath to the 
earnest persuasion of friendship, that he comes fortji 
at a critical moment for the Greeks to save them from 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

ruin. What are his arms? He has none at all. 
Simply by his voice he changes the face of the battle. 
He shouts, and nations fly from the sound. Never 
but once again is such a shout recorded by a poet: — 

1 He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep 
Of hell resounded.' 

Who called? That shout was the shout of an arch- 
angel. Next, we see him reluctantly allowing his 
dearest friend to assume his own arms; the kindness 
and the modesty of his nature forbidding him to sug- 
gest, that not the divine weapons, but the immortal 
arm of the wielder had made them invincible. His 
friend perishes. Then we see him rise in his noon- 
tide wrath, before which no life could stand. The 
frenzy of his grief makes him for a time cruel and 
implacable. He sweeps the field of battle like a 
monsoon. His revenge descends perfect, sudden, 
like a curse from heaven. We now recognize the 
goddess-born. This is his avatar — the incarnate 
descent of his wrath. Had he moved to battle under 
the ordinary impulses of Ajax, Diomed, and the other 
heroes, we never could have sympathized or gone 
along with so withering a course. We should have 
viewed him as a ' scourge of God, ? or fiend, born for 
the tears of wives and the maledictions of mothers. 
Bat the poet, before he would let him loose upon men, 



THE HOMERIC POEMS xlv 

creates for him a sufficient, or at least palliating, 
motive. In the sternest of his acts we read only the 
anguish of his grief. This is surely the perfection of 
art. At length the work of destruction is finished; 
but if the poet leaves him at this point, there would 
be a want of repose, and we should be left with a 
painful impression of his hero as forgetting the 
earlier humanities of his nature, and brought forward 
only for final exhibition in his terrific phases. Now, 
therefore, by machinery the most natural, we see this 
paramount hero travelling back within our gentler 
sympathies, and revolving to his rest like the vesper 
sun disrobed of his blazing terrors. We see him 
settling down to that humane and princely character 
in which he had been first exhibited; we see him re- 
lenting at the sight of Priam's gray hairs, touched 
with the sense of human calamity, and once again 
mastering his passion (grief now) as formerly he had 
mastered his wrath. He consents that his feud shall 
sleep; he surrenders the corpse of his capital enemy; 
and the last farewell chords of the poem rise with a 
solemn intonation from the grave of ' Hector, the 
tamer of horses ' — that noble soldier who had so 
long been the column of his country, and to whom, 
in his dying moments, the stern Achilles had declared, 
but then in the middle career of his grief, that no 
honorable burial should ever be granted. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 

" Such is the outline of an Achilleis, as it might be 
gathered from the Iliad; and for the use of schools 
we are surprised that such a beautiful whole has not 
long since been extracted. A tale more affecting by 
its story and vicissitudes does not exist; and, after 
this, who cares in what order the non-essential parts 
of the poem may be arranged, or whether Homer was 
their author? It is sufficient that one mind must 
have executed this Achilleis, in consequence of its 
intense unity. Every part implies every other part. 
With such a model before him as this poem on the 
wrath of Achilles, Aristotle could not carry his notions 
of unity too high. And the unifying mind which 
could conceive and execute the Achilleis — that is 
what we mean by Homer. As well might it be said, 
that the parabola described by a cannon-ball was in 
one half due to a first discharge, and in the other 
half to a second, as that one poet could lay the prepa- 
rations for the passion and sweep of such a poem, 
whilst another conducted it to a close. Creation does 
not proceed by instalments : the steps of its revolu- 
tion are not successive, but simultaneous; and the 
last book of the Achilleis was undoubtedly conceived 
in the same moment as the first. 

" What effect such an Achilleis, abstracted from the 
Iliad, would probably leave upon the mind, it happens 
that we can measure by our own childish experience. 



SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS xlvii 

In Russell's Ancient Europe, a book much used in the 
last century, there is an abstract of the Iliad, which 
presents very nearly the outline of an Achilleis, such 
as we have supposed. The heroes are made to speak 
in a sort of stilted, or at least buskined language, not 
unsuited to youthful taste : and from the close con- 
vergement of the separate parts, the interest is con- 
densed. This book, in our eighth year, we read. 
It was our first introduction to the ' Tale of Troy 
divine ' ; and we do not deceive ourselves in saying, 
that this memorable experience drew from us the first 
unselfish tears that ever we shed; and by the stings 
of grief which it left behind, demonstrated its own 
natural pathos." (De Quincey, Homer and the 
Homer idee.) 

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 

As the Iliad is one of the world's great master- 
pieces, it is a book to live with, not to read once and 
have done with. It is a source of perpetual profit, 
inspiration, and delight. It discloses at the fiftieth 
reading beauties that were unseen at the first ac- 
quaintance. In Homer, as Frederic Harrison says, 
"alone of the poets, a national life is transfigured, 
wholly beautiful, complete, and happy; where care, 
doubt, decay, are as yet unborn. Here is a secular 



xlviii INTRODUCTION 

Eden of the natural man — man not yet fallen or 
ashamed. . . . And yet how seldom do we find a 
friend spellbound over the Greek Bible of antiquity, 
whilst they wade through torrents of magazine quo- 
tations from a petty versifier of to-day, and in an idle 
vacation will graze, as contentedly as cattle in a fresh 
meadow, through the chopped straw of a circulating 
library. A generation which will listen to Pinafore 
for three hundred nights, and will read M. Zola's 
seventeenth romance, can no more read Homer than 
it could read a cuneiform inscription. It will read 
about Homer just as it will read about a cuneiform 
inscription, and will crowd to see a few pots which 
probably came from the neighborhood of Troy. But 
to Homer and the primeval type of heroic man in his 
simple joyousness the cultured generation is really 
dead, as completely as some spoiled beauty of the 
ballroom is blind to the bloom of the heather or the 
waving of the daffodils in a glade." 

The first duty of the teacher is to stimulate a healthy 
love of reading and to kindle that inextinguishable love 
for literature which, Gibbon said, in words which are 
burned into the memory, he would not exchange for the 
wealth of the Indies. We should not be deceived by 
any solemn pedantry or shallow pedagogy into regard- 
ing the joy of literary study as a mere dilettante amuse- 
ment. In the public schools there is a large class of boys 



SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS xlix 

who come from bare homes where books are unknown, 
and another large class whose imaginations have been 
inflamed by the dime dreadful, or the weekly story 
paper. The manliest of stories, the most heroic of 
tales of adventures by land or sea, are too tame or 
too slow for the appetite of one of these. He is 
callous to Dana or Melville; he thinks "Westward 
Ho! " "tiresomely dull." If only he can be beguiled 
into a love of reading, all other things become possi- 
ble to him. Grammar he will learn best not from 
rules and principles, but as it is organized in thought 
and feeling in the great masters of expression ; and 
he will unconsciously grow into a likeness with the 
company he keeps. He will enlarge his vocabulary 
with each book observingly read, and his tongue will 
unconsciously grow fluent and his pen more facile as 
he acquires, apparently without labor, the difficult 
art of expression. 

Most of us, a shrewd observer has said, find that 
true sympathy with our classics begins only then 
when our academic study of them is wholly at an end. 
There is therefore at first no need of glossaries and 
commentaries, and the poem may be treated as an 
English poem, and read for the delight of the narra- 
tive. The tale of Troy should first be told, and, with 
the student's curiosity thus aroused, the reading of 
the text begun. No hint need be given, until the 



1 INTRODUCTION 

Iliad is read and read again, of what modern scholar- 
ship has discovered concerning Homer. Least of all 
need the child's imagination, be disturbed by theories 
of the authorship of the books, and all the din of con- 
troversy raised by Wolf and his successors. 

No disciple of Herbart ever evolved a more careful 
plan of education, or method of pedagogic practice, 
than that which Robert Browning drew concerning 
this very poem, and which may be commended to the 
thoughtful attention of both teacher and pupil. 



DEVELOPMENT 

My Father was a scholar and knew Greek. 
When I was five years old, I asked him once 
" What do you read about ? " 

"The Siege of Troy." 
" What is a siege, and what is Troy ? " 

Whereat 
He piled up chairs and tables for a town, 
Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat 

— Helen, enticed away from home (he said) 
By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close 
Under the footstool, being cowardly, 

But whom — since she was worth the pains, poor puss- 
Towzer and Tray — our dogs, the Atreidai, — sought 
By taking Troy to get possession of 

— Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk, 
(My pony in the stable) — forth would prance 



DEVELOPMENT 

And put to flight Hector — our page boy's self. 
This taught ine who was who and what was what : 
So far I rightly understood the case 
At five years old : a huge delight it proved 
And still proves — thanks to that instructor sage 
My Father, who knew better than turn straight 
Learning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance, 
Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind, 
Content with darkness and vacuity. 



It happened, two or three years afterward, 

That — I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege — 

My Father came upon our make-believe. 

u How would you like to read yourself the tale 

Properly told, of which I gave you first 

Merely such notion as a boy could bear ? 

Pope, now, would give you the precise account 

Of what some day by dint of scholarship, 

You'll hear — who knows? — from Homer's very mouth. 

Learn Greek by all means, read the 'Blind Old Man, 

Sweetest of singers' — iuphlos which means ' blind,' 

Hedistos which means ' sweetest.' Time enough ! 

Try, anyhow, to master him some day ; 

Until when, take what serves for substitute, 

Read Pope, by all means ! " 

So I ran through Pope, 
Enjoyed the tale — what history so true? 
Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged, 
Grew fitter thus for what was promised next — 
The very thing itself, the actual words, 
When I could turn — say, Buttman to account. 



Hi INTRODUCTION 

Time passed, I ripened somewhat : one fine day, 
" Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less ? 
There's Heine, where the big books block the shelf : 
Don't skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon ! " 

I tlmmbed well, and skipped nowise till I learned 
Who was who, what was what, from Homer's tongue, 
And there an end of learning. Had you asked 
The all-accomplished scholar, twelve years old, 
" Who was it wrote the Iliad?" — what a laugh ! 
" Why, Homer, all the world knows : of his life 
Donbtless some facts exist : it's everywhere : 
We have not settled, though, his place of birth : 
He begged, for certain, and was blind beside : 
Seven cities claimed him — Scio, with best right, 
Thinks Byron. What he wrote ? Those Hymns we have. 
Then there's the ' Battle of the Frogs and Mice,' 
That's all — unless they dig 'Margites' up 
(I'd like that) nothing more remains to know." 

Thus did youth spend a comfortable time ; 
Until — " What's this the Germans say is fact 
That Wolf found out first ? It's unpleasant work 
Their chop and change, unsettling one's belief : 
All the same, while we live, we learn, that's sure." 
So, I bent brow o'er Prolegomena. 

And, after Wolf, a dozen of his like 
Proved there was never any Troy at all, 
Neither Besiegers nor Besieged, — nay worse, — 
No actual Homer, no authentic text, 
No warrant for the fiction I, as fact, 



DEVELOPMENT liii 

Had treasured in my heart and soul so long — 

Ay, mark you ! and as fact held still, still hold, 

Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of hearts 

And soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixed 

From accidental fancy's guardian sheath. 

Assuredly thenceforth — thank my stars ! — 

However it got there, deprive who could — 

Wring from the shrine my precious tenantry, 

Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his spouse, 

Achilles and his friend? — though Wolf — ah, Wolf ! 

Why must he needs come doubting, spoil a dream ? 

But then, ' ' No dream's worth waking ' ' — Browning says : 

And here's the reason why I tell thus much. 

I, now mature man, you anticipate, 

May blame my Father justifiably 

For letting me dream out my nonage thus, 

And only by such slow and sure degrees 

Permitting me to sift the grain from chaff, 

Get truth and falsehood known and named as such. 

Why did he ever let me dream at all, 

Not bid me taste the story in its strength ? 

Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified 

To rightly understand mythology, 

Silence at least was in his power to keep : 

I might have — somehow — correspondingly — 

Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains, 

Been taught, by forthrights, not meanderings, 

My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus' son, 

A lie as Hell's Gate, love my wedded wife, 

Like Hector, and so on with all the rest. 

Could not I have excogitated this 

Without believing such men really were ? 



liv INTRODUCTION 

That is — he might have put into my hand 

The u Ethics " ? In translation, if you please, 

Exact, no pretty lying that improves, 

To suit the modern taste : no more, no less — 

The "Ethics " : 'tis a treatise I find hard 

To read aright now that my hair is gray, 

And I can manage the original. 

At five years old — how ill had fared its leaves ! 

Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite, 

At least I soil no page with bread and milk, 

Nor crumple, dogs-ear and deface — boys' way. 









INTRODUCTION lv 



The student will find the following books helpful in 
the study of Pope and his translation of the Iliad : — 
Robert Carruthers, The Life of Alexander Pope, Lon- 
don, 1857. C. W. Dilke, Papers of a Critic, 1875, 
W. J. Courthope, Life of Pope, Vol. V. of Elwin's edi- 
tion of Pope (Murray), 10 vols., 1871-1889. The Iliad 
of Homer ; translated by Mr. Pope, first four books, 
1715 ; next three volumes, 1716, 1717, 1718 ; last two 
volumes in 1720. Leslie Stephen, " Pope," in the series 
of English Men of Letters {Harper), 1880. De Quin- 
cey, "Pope," in Biographical Essays. De Quincey, 
Homer and the Homeridm. Lowell, " Pope," in My 
Study Windows. E. C. Jebb, Introduction to the Iliad 
and the Odyssey (Ginn), 1887. Walter Leaf, Compan- 
ion to the Iliad (Macmillan), 1892. G. C. W. Warr, 
The Greek Epic (London), 1895. J. P. MahafTy, Social 
Life in Greece from Homer to Menander (Macmillan), 
1874. Andrew Lang, Homer and the Epic (Long- 
mans), 1893. Charles Mills Gay ley, Classic Myths in 
English Literature (Ginn), 1893. 



POPE'S ILIAD 
BOOK I 

THE CONTENTION OE ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON 

Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring 
Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing ! 
That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign 
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain ; 
Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore, 5 

Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore : 
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, 
Such was the sov'reign doom, and such the will of 
Jove ! 
Declare, Muse ! in what ill-fated hour 
Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power ? 10 
Latona's son a dire contagion spread, 
And heap'd the camp with mountains of the dead ; 
The king of men his rev'rend priest defied, 
And, for the king's offence, the people died. 

B 1 



2 POPE'S ILIAD 

For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain 15 

His captive daughter from the victor's chain. 
Suppliant the venerable father stands ; 
Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands : 
By these he begs ; and, lowly bending down, 
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown. 20 

He sued to all, but chief implor'd for grace 
The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race : 

"Ye° kings and warriors! may your vows be 
crown'd, 
And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground ; 
May Jove restore you, when your toils are o'er, 25 

Safe to the pleasures of your native shore. 
But oh ! relieve a wretched parent's pain, 
And give Chryseis to these arms again ; 
If mercy fail, yet let my presents move, 
And dread avenging Phoebus, son of Jove." 30 

The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare, 
The priest to rev'rence, and release the fair. 
Not so Atrides : he, with kingly pride, 
Bepuls'd the sacred sire, and thus replied : 

" Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains, 35 
Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains j 
Hence, with thy laurel crown and golden rod, 
Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god. 



BOOK I 3 

Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain ; 
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in 
vain ; 40 

Till time shall rifle every youthful grace, 
And age dismiss her from my cold embrace ; 
In daily labours of the loom employed, 
Or doom'd to deck the bed she once enjoy'd. 
Hence then ; to Argos° shall the maid retire, 45 

Far from her native soil and weeping sire." 

The trembling priest along the shore returned, 
And in the anguish of a father mourn'd. 
Disconsolate, not daring to "complain, 
Silent he wander'd by the sounding main ; 50 

Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays, 
The god who darts around the world his rays : 

" Smintheus ! sprung from fair Latona's line, 
Thou guardian power of Cilia the divine, 
Thou source of light ! whom Tenedos adores, 55 

And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores ; 
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane, 
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain ; 
God of the silver bow ! thy shafts employ, 
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy." 60 

Thus Chryses pray'd : the f av'ring power attends, 
And from Olympus' lofty tops descends. 



4 POPE'S ILIAD 

Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound ; 

Fierce, as he mov'd, his silver shafts resound. 

Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, 65 

And gloomy darkness roll'd around his head. 

The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow, 

And hissing fly the feather'd fates below. 

On mules and dogs th' infection first began ; 

And last, the vengef ul arrows fix'd in man. 70 

For nine long nights through all the dusky air 

The pyres thick-flaming shot a dismal glare. 

But ere the tenth revolving day was run, 

Inspired by Juno,° Thetis' god-like son 

Conven'd to council all the Grecian train ; 75 

For much the goddess mourn' d her heroes slain. 

Th' assembly seated, rising o'er the rest, 
Achilles thus the king of men address'd : 

"Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore, 
And measure back the seas we cross'd before ? 80 

The plague destroying whom the sword would spare, 
'Tis time to save the few remains of war.° 
But let some prophet or some sacred sage 
Explore the cause of great Apollo's rage ; 
Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove 85 

By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove. 
If broken vows this heavy curse have laid, 



BOOK I 5 

Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid. 

So heav'n aton'd shall dying Greece restore, 

And Phoebus dart his burning shafts no more." 90 

He said, and sate : when Calchas thus replied, 
Calchas the wise, the Grecian priest and guide, 
That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view 
The past, the present, and the future knew : 
Uprising slow, the venerable sage 95 

Thus spoke the prudence and the fears of age ; 

" Belov'd of Jove, Achilles ! wouldst thou know 
Why angry Phoebus bends his fatal bow ? 
First give thy faith, and plight a prince's word 
Of sure protection, by thy pow'r and sword. 100 

For I must speak what wisdom would conceal, 
And truths invidious to the great reveal. 
Bold is the task, when subjects, grown too wise, 
Instruct a monarch where his error lies ; 
For though we deem the short-liv'd fury past, 105 

'Tis sure, the mighty will revenge at last." 

To whom Pelides : " From thy inmost soul 
Speak what thou know'st, and speak without control. 
Ev'n by that god I swear, who rules the day, 
To whom thy hands the vows of Greece convey, no 
And whose blest oracles thy lips declare : 
Long as Achilles breathes this vital air, 



6 POPE'S ILIAD 

No daring Greek, of all the numerous band, 
Against his priest shall lift an impious hand : 
Not ev'n the chief by whom our hosts are led, 115 

The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head." 

Encouraged thus, the blameless man replies : 
" Nor vows unpaid, nor slighted sacrifice, 
But he, our chief, provoked the raging pest, 
Apollo's vengeance for his injur'd priest. 120 

Nor will the god's awaken'd fury cease, 
But plagues shall spread, and fun'ral fires increase, 
Till the great king, without a ransom paid, 
To her own Ghrysa send the black-ey'd ° maid. 
Perhaps, with added sacrifice and pray'r, 125 

The priest may pardon, and the god may spare." 

The prophet spoke ; when, with a gloomy frown, 
The monarch started from his shining throne ; 
Black choler filFd his breast that boil'd with ire, 
And from his eyeballs flash ? d the living fire. 130 

"Augur accurs'd! denouncing mischief still, 
Prophet of plagues, for ever boding ill ! 
Still must that tongue some wounding message bring, 
And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king ? 
For this are Phoebus' oracles explored, 135 

To teach the Greeks to murmur at their lord ? 
For this with falsehoods is my honour stain'd, 



BOOK I 7 

Is heaven offended, and a priest profan'd, 

Because my prize, my beauteous maid, I hold, 

And heav'nly charms prefer to proffer'd gold ? 140 

A maid, unmatched in manners as in face, 

SkilPd in each art, and crown' d with every grace : 

Not half so dear were Clytaernnestra's ° charms, 

When first her blooming beauties bless'd my arms. 

Yet, if the gods demand her, let her sail ; 145 

Our cares are only for the public weal : 

Let me be deem'd the hateful cause of all, 

And suffer, rather than my people fall. 

The prize, the beauteous prize, I will resign, 

So dearly valu'd, and so justly ° mine. 150 

But since for common good I yield the fair, 

My private loss let grateful Greece repair ; 

Nor unrewarded let your prince complain, 

That he alone has fought and bled in vain." 

" Insatiate king ! " (Achilles thus replies) 155 

" Fond of the pow'r, but fonder of the prize ! 
Wouldst thou the Greeks their lawful prey should 

yield, 
The due reward of many a well-fought ° field ? 
The spoils of cities raz'd and warriors slain, 
We share with justice, as with toil we gain : 160 

But to resume whate'er thy av'rice craves 



8 POPE'S ILIAD 

(That trick of tyrants) may be borne by slaves. 
Yet if our chief for plunder only fight, 
The spoils of Ilion shall thy loss requite, 
Whene'er, by Jove's decree, our conquering pow'rs 165 
Shall humble to the dust her lofty tow'rs." 

Then thus the king : " Shall I my prize resign 
With tame content, and thou possessed of thine ? 
Great as thou art, and like a god in fight, 
Think not to rob me of a soldier's right. 170 

At thy demand shall I restore the maid ? 
First let the just equivalent be paid; 
Such as a king might ask ; and let it be 
A treasure worthy her, and worthy me. 
Or grant me this, or with a monarch's claim 175 

This hand shall seize some other captive dame. 
The mighty ° Ajax shall his prize resign, 
Ulysses' spoils, or ev'n thy own, be mine. 
The man who suffers, loudly may complain ; 
And rage he may, but he shall rage in vain. 180 

But this when time requires — it now remains 
We launch a bark to plough the wat'ry plains, 
And waft the sacrifice to Chrysa's shores, 
With chosen pilots, and with lab'ring oars. 
Soon shall the fair the sable ship ascend, 185 

And some deputed prince the charge attend. 



BOOK I 9 

This Creta's king, or Ajax shall fulfil, 
Or wise Ulysses see performed our will ; 
Or, if our royal pleasure shall ordain, 
Achilles' self conduct her o'er the main ; 190 

Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage, 
The god propitiate, and the pest assuage.'' 
At this, Pelides, frowning stern, replied : 
" tyrant, arm'd with insolence and pride ! 
Inglorious slave to int'rest, ever join'd 195 

With fraud, unworthy of a royal mind ! 
What gen'rous Greek, obedient to thy word, 
Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword ? 
What cause have I to war at thy decree ? 
The distant Trojans never injur'd me : 200 

To Phthia's realms no hostile troops they led ; 
Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed ; 
Par hence remov'd, the hoarse-resounding main 
And walls of rocks secure my native reign, 
Whose fruitful soil luxuriant harvests grace, 205 

Rich in her fruits, and in her martial race. 
Hither we sail'd, a voluntary throngs 
T' avenge a private, not a public wrong : 
What else to Troy th' assembl'd nations draws, 
But thine, ungrateful, and thy brother's cause ? 210 
Is this the pay our blood and toils deserve, 



10 POPE'S ILIAD 

Disgraced and injur'd by the man we serve? 

And dar'st thou threat to snatch my prize away, 

Due to the deeds of many a dreadful day, 

A prize as small, tyrant, match' d with thine, 215 

As thy own actions if compar'd to mine ! 

Thine in each conquest is the wealthy prey, 

Though mine the sweat and danger of the day. 

Some trivial present to my ships I bear, 

Or barren praises pay the wounds of war. 220 

But know, proud monarch, I'm thy slave no more ; 

My fleet shall waft me to Thessalia's shore. 

Left by Achilles on the Trojan plain, 

What spoils, what conquests, shall Atrides gain ? " 

To this the king : " Fly, mighty warrior, fly ! 225 
Thy aid we need not and thy threats defy. 
There want not chiefs in such a cause to fight, 
And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right. 
Of all the kings (the gods' distinguished care) 
To pow'r superior none such hatred bear : 230 

Strife and debate thy restless soul employ, 
And wars and horrors are thy savage joy. 
If thou hast strength, 'twas heav'n that strength 

bestow'd, 
For know, vain man ! thy valour is from God. 
Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away, 235 



BOOK I 11 

Rule thy own realms with arbitrary sway : 

I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate 

Thy short-liv'd friendship and thy groundless hate. 

Go, threat thy earth-born Myrmidons ; but here 

'Tis mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear. 240 

Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand, 

My bark shall waft her to her native land ; 

But then prepare, imperious prince ! prepare, 

Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair : 

Ev'n in thy tent I'll seize the blooming prize, 245 

Thy lov'd Briseis with the radiant eyes. 

Hence shalt thou prove my~might, and curse the hour 

Thou stood'st a rival of imperial pow'r ; 

And hence to all our host it shall be known 

That kings are subject to the gods alone." 250 

Achilles heard, with, grief and rage oppressed ; 
His heart swelPd high, and labour'd in his breast. 
Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruPd, 
Now fir'd by wrath, and now by reason cooPd : 
That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword, 255 
Force thro' the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord ; 
This whispers soft, his vengeance to control, 
And calm the rising tempest of his soul. 
Just as in anguish of suspense he stay'd, 
While half unsheath'd appeared the glittering blade, 260 



12 POPE'S ILIAD 

Minerva swift descended from above, 

Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove 

(For both the princes claimed her equal care) ; 

Behind she stood, and by the golden hair 

Achilles seiz'd ; to him alone confessed, 265 

A sable cloud conceaFd her from the rest. 

He sees, and sudden to the goddess cries, 

Known by the flames that sparkle from her eyes : 

" Descends Minerva in her guardian care, 
A heav'nly witness of the wrongs I bear 270 

From Atreus' son ? Then let those eyes that view 
The daring crime, behold the vengeance too." 

" Forbear ! " (the progeny of Jove replies) 
" To calm thy fury I forsake the skies : 
Let great Achilles, to the gods resigned, 275 

To reason yield the empire o'er his mind. 
By awful Juno this command is giv'n; 
The king and you are both the care of heav'n. 
The force of keen reproaches let him feel, 
But sheath, obedient, thy revenging steel. 280 

For I pronounce (and trust a heavenly pow'r) 
Thy injured honour has its fated hour, 
When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore, 
And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store. 
Then let revenge no longer bear the sway, 285 



BOOK I 13 

Command thy passions, and the gods obey." 

To her Pelides : "With regardful ear, 
'Tis just, goddess ! I thy dictates hear. 
Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress : 
Those who revere the gods, the gods will bless." 290 
He said, observant of the blue-ey'd maid ; 
Then in the sheath return' d the shining blade. 
The goddess swift to high Olympus flies, 
And joins the sacred senate of the skies. 

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook, 295 

Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke : 
" 0° monster ! inix'd of insolence and fear, 
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer ! 
When wert thou known in ambush' d fights to dare, 
Or nobly face the horrid front of war ? 300 

'Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try ; 
Thine to look on and bid the valiant die. 
So much 'tis safer thro' the camp to go, 
And rob a subject, than despoil a foe. 
Scourge of thy people, violent and base ! 305 

Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race, 
Who, lost to sense of gen'rous freedom past, 
Are tam'd to wrongs, or this had been thy last. 
iSTow by this sacred sceptre hear me swear, 
Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, 310 



14 POPE'S ILIAD 

Which, sever'd from the trunk (as I from thee), 

On the bare mountains left its parent tree ; 

This sceptre, form'd by tempered steel to prove 

An ensign of the delegates of Jove, 

From whom the pow'r of laws and justice springs 315 

(Tremendous oath ! inviolate to kings) : 

By this I swear, when bleeding Greece again 

Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain. 

When, flush' d with slaughter, Hector comes to spread 

The purpled shore with mountains of the dead, 320 

Then shalt thou mourn th' affront thy madness gave, 

Forc'd to deplore, when impotent to save : 

Then rage in bitterness of soul, to know 

This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe." 

He spoke ; and furious hurPd against the ground 325 
His sceptre starred with golden studs around ; 
Then sternly silent sate. With like disdain, 
The raging king returned his frowns again. 

To calm their passion with the words of age, 
Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage, 330 

Experienc'd Nestor, in persuasion skilPd ; 
Words sweet as honey from his lips distilPd : 
Two generations now had pass'd away, 
Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway ; 
Two ages o'er his native realm he reign' d, 335 



BOOK I 15 

And now th' example of the third remained. 
All view'd with awe the venerable man, 
Who thus with mild benevolence began : 

"What shame, what woe is this to Greece! what joy 
To Troy's proud monarch and the friends of Troy ! 340 
That adverse gods commit to stern debate 
The best, the bravest, of the Grecian state. 
Young as ye are, this youthful heat restrain, 
Nor think your Nestor's yjears and wisdom vain. 
A godlike race of heroes once I knew, 345 

Such as no more these aged eyes shall view ! 
Lives there a chief to match Pirithous' fame, 
Dryas the bold, or Ceneus' deathless name ; 
Theseus, endued with more than mortal might, 
Or Polyphemus, like the gods in fight ? 350 

With these of old to toils of battle bred, 
In early youth my hardy days I led ; 
Fir'cl with the thirst which virtuous envy breeds, 
And smit with love of honourable deeds. 
Strongest of men, they pierc'd the mountain boar, 355 
Rang'd the wild deserts red with monsters' gore, 
And from their hills the shaggy Centaurs tore. 
Yet these with soft persuasive arts I sway'd ; 
When Nestor spoke, they listen'd and obey'd. 
If in my youth, ev'n these esteem'd me wise, 360 



16 POPE'S ILIAD 

Do you, young warriors, hear my age advise. 

Atrides, seize not on the beauteous slave ; 

That prize the Greeks by common suffrage gave : 

Nor thou, Achilles, treat our prince with pride ; 

Let kings be just, and sovereign pow'r preside. 365 

Thee the first honours of the war adorn, 

Like gods in strength and of a goddess born ; 

Him awful majesty exalts above 

The powers of earth and sceptred sons of Jove. 

Let both unite with well-consenting mind, 370 

So shall authority with strength be join'd. 

Leave me, king ! to calm Achilles' rage; 

Eule thou thyself, as more advanced in age. 

Forbid it, gods ! Achilles should be lost, 

The pride of Greece, and bulwark of our host." 375 

This said, he ceas'd ; the king of men replies : 
« Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise. 
But that imperious, that unconquer'd soul, 
No laws can limit, no respect control : 
Before his pride must his superiors fall, 380 

His word the law, and he the lord of all ? 
Him must our hosts, our chiefs, ourself obey ? 
What king can bear a rival in his sway ? 
Grant that the gods his matchless force have giv'n ; 
Has foul reproach a privilege from heav'n ? " 385 



BOOK I 17 

Here on the monarch's speech Achilles broke, 
And furious, thus, and interrupting, spoke : 
" Tyrant, I well deserv'd thy galling chain, 
To live thy slave, and still to serve in vain, 
Should I submit to each unjust decree : 390 

Command thy vassals, but command not me. 
Seize on Briseis, whom the Grecians doomed 
My prize of war, yet tamely see resumed ; 
And seize secure ; no more Achilles draws 
His conquering sword in any woman's cause. 395 

The gods command me to forgive the past ; 
But let this first invasion be the last : 
For know, thy blood, when next thou dar'st invade, 
Shall stream in vengeance on my reeking blade." 

At this they ceas'd ; the stern debate expir'd : 400 
The chiefs in sullen majesty retir'd. 

Achilles with Patroclus took his way, 
Where near his tents his hollow vessels lay. 
Meantime Atrides launched with num'rous oars 
A well-rigg'd ship for Chrysa's sacred shores : 405 

High on the deck was fair Chryseis plac'd, 
And sage Ulysses with the conduct grac'd : 
Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stow'd, 
Then, swiftly sailing, cut the liquid road. 
"The host to expiate next the king prepares, 410 

c 



18 POPE'S ILIAD 

With pure lustrations and with solemn pray'rs. 

Wash'd by the briny ° wave, the pious train 

Are cleans'd; and cast th' ablutions in the main. 

Along the shores whole hecatombs were laid. 

And bulls and goats to Phoebus' altars paid. 415 

The sable fumes in curling spires arise, 

And waft their grateful odours to the skies. 

The army thus in sacred rites engag'd, 
Atrides still with deep resentment rag'd. 
To wait his will two sacred heralds stood, 420 

Talthybius ° and Eurybates ° the good. 
" Haste to the fierce Achilles' tent," he cries, 
" Thence bear Briseis as our royal prize : 
Submit he must ; or, if they will not part, 
Ourself in arms shall tear her from his heart." 425 

Th' unwilling heralds act their lord's commands ; 
Pensive they walk along the barren sands : 
Arriv'd, the hero in his tent they find, 
With gloomy aspect, on his arm reclin'd. 
At awful distance long they silent stand, 430 

Loth to advance or speak their hard command ; 
Decent confusion ! This the godlike man 
Perceiv'd, and thus with accent mild began : 

" With leave and honour enter our abodes, 
Ye sacred ministers of men and gods ! 435 



BOOK I 19 

I know your message ; by constraint yon came ; 

Not you, but your imperious lord, I blame. 

Patroclus, haste, the fair Briseis bring ; 

Conduct my captive to the haughty king. 

But witness, heralds, and proclaim my vow, 44 o 

Witness to gods above and men below ! 

But first and loudest to your prince declare, 

That lawless tyrant whose commands you bear ; 

Unmov'd as death Achilles shall remain, 

Tho' prostrate Greece should bleed at ev'ry vein : 445 

The raging chief in frantic passion lost, 

Blind to himself, and useless to his host, 

Unskill'd to judge the future by the past, 

In blood and slaughter shall repent at last." 

Patroclus now th' unwilling beauty brought; 450 
She, in soft sorrows and in pensive thought, 
Pass'd silent, as the heralds held her hand. 
And oft look'd back, slow-moving o'er the strand. 

Not so his loss the fierce Achilles bore ; 
But sad retiring to the sounding shore, 455 

O'er the wild margin of the deep he hung, 
That kindred deep from whence his mother sprung; 
There, bath'd in tears of anger and disdain, 
Thus loud lamented to the stormy main: 

" parent ° goddess ! since in early bloom 460 



20 POPE'S ILIAD 

Thy son must fall, by too severe a doom ; 

Sure, to so short a race of glory born, 

Great Jove in justice should this span adorn. 

Honour and fame at least the Thund'rer ow'd; 

And ill he pays the promise of a god, 465 

If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies, 

Obscures my glories, and resumes my prize." 

Ear in the deep recesses of the main, 
Where aged ° Ocean holds his wat'ry reign, 
The goddess-mother heard. The waves divide ; 470 
And like a mist she rose above the tide ; 
Beheld him mourning on the naked shores, 
And thus the sorrows of his soul explores : 
" Why grieves my son? Thy anguish let me share, 
Reveal the cause, and trust a parent's care." 475 

He, deeply sighing, said : " To tell my woe 
Is but to mention what too well you know. 
From Thebe,° sacred to Apollo's name, 
Eetion's ° realm, our conqu'ring army cam^, 
With treasure loaded and triumphant spoils, 480 

Whose just division crown' d the soldier's toils; 
But bright Chryseis, heav'nly prize ! was led 
By vote selected to the gen'ral's bed. 
The priest of Phoebus sought by gifts to gain 
His beauteous daughter from the victor's chain; 485 



BOOK I 21 

The fleet he reach'd, and, lowly bending down, 

Held forth the sceptre and the laurel crown, 

Entreating all ; but chief inrplor'd for grace 

The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race. 

The gen'rous Greeks their joint consent declare, 490 

The priest to rev'rence, and release the fair. 

Not so Atrides : he, with wonted pride, 

The sire insulted, and his gifts denied : 

Th ? insulted sire (his god's peculiar care) 

To Phoebus pray'd, and Phoebus heard the pray'r : 495 

A dreadful plague ensues^ th' avenging darts 

Incessant fly, and pierce the Grecian hearts. 

A prophet then, inspired by heav'n, arose, 

And points the crime, and thence derives the woes : 

Myself the first th' assembled chiefs incline 500 

T ? avert the vengeance of the pow'r divine ; 

Then, rising in his wrath, the monarch storm'd ; 

Incens'd he threatened, and his threats perform'd : 

The fair Chryseis to her sire was sent, 

With off er'd gifts to make the god relent ; 505 

But now he seiz'd Brisei's' heav'nly charms, 

And of my valour's prize defrauds my arms, 

Defrauds the votes of all the Grecian train ; 

And service, faith, and justice plead in vain. 

But, goddess ! thou thy suppliant son attend, 510 



22 POPE'S ILIAD 

To high Olympus' shining court ascend, 
Urge all the ties to former service ow'd, 
And sue for vengeance to the thundering god. 
Oft hast thou triumph' d in the glorious boast 
That thou stood'st forth, of all th' ethereal host, 515 
"When bold rebellion shook the realms above, 
Th' undaunted guard of cloud-compelling Jove, 
When the bright partner of his awful reign, 
The warlike ° maid, and monarch ° of the main, 
The traitor-gods, by mad ambition driv'n, 520 

Durst threat with chains th' omnipotence of heav'n. 
Then call'd by thee, the monster Titan came 
(Whom gods Briareus, men iEgeon name) ; 
Through wand'ring skies enormous stalk'd along, 
Not he that shakes the solid earth so strong : 525 

With giant-pride at Jove's high throne he stands, 
And brandish'd round him all his hundred hands. 
Th ? affrighted gods confess'd their awful lord, 
They dropp'd the fetters, trembled and ador'd. 
This, goddess, this to his rememb'rance call, 530 

Embrace ° his knees, at his tribunal fall ; 
I Conjure him far to drive the Grecian train, 
To hurl them headlong to their fleet and main, 
To heap the shores with copious death, and bring 
The Greeks to know the curse of such a king : 535 



BOOK I 23 

Let Agamemnon lift his haughty head 

O'er all his wide dominion of the dead, 

And mourn in blood, that e'er he durst disgrace 

The boldest warrior of the Grecian race." 

" Unhappy son ! " (fair Thetis thus replies, 540 

While tears celestial trickle from her eyes) 
" Why have I borne thee with a mother's throes, 
To fates averse, and nurs'd for future woes ? 
So short a space the light of heav'n to view ! 
So short a space ! and fill'd with sorrow, too ! 545 

Oh, might a parent's careful wish prevail, 
Far, far from Ilion should thy vessels sail, 
And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun, 
Which now, alas ! too nearly threats my son ; 
Yet (what I can) to move thy suit I'll go 550 

To great Olympus crown'd with fleecy snow. 
Meantime, secure within thy ships, from far 
Behold the field, nor mingle in the war. 
The sire of gods and all th' ethereal train 
On the warm ° limits of the farthest main, 555 

Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace 
The feasts of ^Ethiopia's ° blameless race : 
Twelve days the pow'rs indulge the genial rite, 
Returning with the twelfth revolving light. 
Then will I mount the brazen dome, and move 560 



24 POPE'S ILIAD 

The high, tribunal of immortal Jove." 

The goddess spoke : the rolling waves unclose ; 
Then down the deep she plung'd, from whence she 

rose, 
And left him sorrowing on the lonely coast, 
In wild resentment for the fair he lost. 565 

In Chrysa's port now sage Ulysses rode ; 
Beneath the deck the destin'd victims stow'd ; 
The sails they furl'd, they lash'd the mast aside, 
And dropped their anchors, and the pinnace tied. 
Next on the shore their hecatomb they land, 570 

Chryseis last descending on the strand. 
Her, thus returning from the furrow'd main, 
Ulysses led to Phoebus' sacred fane ; 
"Where, at his solemn altar, as the maid 
He gave to Chryses, thus the hero said: 575 

" Hail, rev'rend priest ! to Phoebus' awful dome ° 
A suppliant I from great Atrides come: 
Unransom'd here receive the spotless fair ; 
Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare ; 
And may thy god, who scatters darts around, 580 

Aton'd by sacrifice, desist to wound." 

At this the sire embraced the maid again, 
So sadly lost, so lately sought in vain. 
Then near the altar of the darting king, 



BOOK I 25 

Disposed in rank their hecatomb they bring : 585 

With water purify their hands, and take 
The sacred offering of the salted cake ; 
While thus, with arms devoutly rais'd in air, 
And solemn voice, the priest directs his pray'r : 

" God of the silver bow, thy ear incline, 590 

Whose pow'r encircles Cilia the divine ; 
Whose sacred eye thy Tenedos surveys, 
And gilds fair Chrysa with distinguished rays ! 
If, fir'd to vengeance at thy priest's request, 
Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest ; 595 

Once more attend ! avert the wasteful woe, 
And smile propitious, and unbend thy bow." 

So Chryses pray'd; Apollo heard his pray'r: 
And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare ; 
Between their horns the salted barley threw, 600 

And with their heads to heav'n the victims slew : 
The limbs they sever from th' inclosing hide ; 
The thighs, selected to the gods, divide : 
On these, in double cauls involv'd with art, 
The choicest morsels lay from ev'ry part. 605 

The priest himself before his altar stands, 
And burns the offering with his holy hands, 
Pours the black wine, and sees the flame aspire; 
The youths with instruments surround the fire : 



26 POPE'S ILIAD 

The thighs thus sacrific'd, and entrails dress'd, 610 

Th' assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest: 

Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, 

Each takes his seat, and each receives his share. 

When now the rage of hunger was repressed, 

With pure libations they conclude the feast; 615 

The youths with wine the copious goblets crown'd, 

And, pleas'd, dispense the flowing bowls around. 

With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends, 

The paeans lengthened till the sun descends : 

The Greeks, restored, the grateful notes prolong : 620 

Apollo listens, and approves the song. 

'Twas night; the chiefs beside their vessel lie, 
Till rosy morn had purpled o'er the sky : 
Then launch, and hoise the mast ; indulgent gales, 
Supplied by Phoebus, fill the swelling sails; 625 

The milk-white canvas bellying as they blow, 
The parted ocean foams and roars below : 
Above the bounding billows swift they flew, 
Till now the Grecian camp appeared in view. 
Far on the beach they haul their bark to land 630 

(The crooked keel divides the yellow sand), 
Then part, where, stretched along the winding bay, 
The ships and tents in mingled prospect lay. 

But, raging still, amidst his navy sate 



BOOK I 27 

The stern Achilles, steadfast in his hate ; 635 

Nor mix'd in combat nor in council join' d; 
But wasting cares lay heavy on his mind; 
In his black thoughts revenge and slaughter roll, 
And scenes of blood rise dreadful in his soul. 639 

Twelve days were past, and now the dawning light 
The gods had summon' d to th' Olympian height : 
Jove, first ascending from the wat'ry bow'rs, 
Leads the long order of ethereal pow'rs. 
When, like the morning mist, in early day, 
Eose from the flood the daughter of the sea; 645 

And to the seats divine her flight addressed. 
There, far apart, and high above the rest, 
The Thund'rer sate ; where old Olympus shrouds 
His hundred heads in heav'n and props the clouds. 
Suppliant the goddess stood: one hand she plac'd 650 
Beneath his beard, and one his knees embraced. 
" If e'er, father of the gods ! " she said, 
"My words could please thee, or my actions aid; 
Some marks of honour on my son bestow, 
And pay in glory what in life you owe. 655 

Fame is at least by heav'nly promise due 
To life so short, and now dishonoured, too. 
Avenge this wrong, ever just and wise ! 
Let Greece be humbled, and the Trojans rise; 



28 POPE'S ILIAD 

Till the proud king, and all th' Achaian race, 660 

Shall heap with honours him they now disgrace." 

Thus Thetis spoke, but Jove in silence held 
The sacred councils of his breast conceal'd. 
Not so repuls'd, the goddess closer pressed, 
Still grasp'd his knees, and urg'd the dear request. 665 
" sire of gods and men ! thy suppliant hear ; 
Eef use, or grant ; for what has Jove to fear ? 
Or, oh ! declare, of all the pow'rs above, 
Is wretched Thetis least the care of Jove ? " 

She said, and sighing thus the god replies, 670 

Who rolls the thunder o'er the vaulted skies : 

" What hast thou ask'd ? Ah ! why should Jove 
engage 

In foreign contests and domestic rage, 
The gods' complaints, and Juno's fierce alarms, 
While I, too partial, aid the Trojan arms ? 675 

Go, lest the haughty partner of my sway 
With jealous eyes thy close access survey ; 
But part in peace, secure thy pray'r is sped : 
Witness the sacred honours of our head, 
The nod that ratifies the will divine, 680 

The faithful, fix'd, irrevocable sign ; 
This seals thy suit, and this fulfils thy vows " — 
He° spoke, and awful bends his sable brows, 



^ 



BOOK I 29 

Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, 
The stamp of fate, the sanction of the gocl : 685 

High heav'n with trembling the dread signal took, 
And all Olympus to the centre shook. 

Swift to the seas profound the goddess flies, 
Jove to his starry mansion in the skies. 
The shining synod of th J immortals wait 690 

The coming god, and from their thrones of state 
Arising silent, rapt in holy fear, 
Before the maj esty of heav'n appear. 
Trembling they stand, while Jove assumes the throne, 
All but the god's imperious queen alone : 695 

Late had she view'd the silver-footed dame, 
And all her passions kindled into flame. 
" Say, artful manager of heav'n " (she cries), 
" Who now partakes the secrets of the skies ? 
Thy Juno knows not the decrees of fate, 700 

In vain the partner of imperial state. 
What fav'rite goddess then those cares divides, 
Which Jove in prudence from his consort hides ? " 

To this the Thunderer : "Seek not thou to find 
The sacred counsels of almighty mind : 705 

Involved in darkness lies the great decree, 
Nor can the depths of fate be pierc'd by thee. 
What fits thy knowledge, thou the first shalt know : 



30 POPE'S ILIAD 

The first of gods above and men below ; 

But thou nor they shall search the thoughts that roll 710 

Deep in the close recesses of my soul." 

Full on the sire, the goddess of the skies 
Eoll'd the large orbs of her majestic eyes, 
And thus returned : " Austere Saturnius, say, 
From whence this wrath, or who controls thy sway ? 715 
Thy boundless will, for me, remains in force, 
And all thy counsels take the destin'd course : 
But ; tis for Greece I fear : for late was seen 
In close consult the silver-footed queen. 
Jove to his Thetis nothing could deny, 720 

Nor was the signal vain that shook the sky. 
What fatal favour has the goddess won, 
To grace her fierce inexorable son ? 
Perhaps in Grecian blood to drench the plain, 
And glut his vengeance with my people slain." 725 

Then thus the god: " Oh, restless fate of pride, 
That strives to learn what heav'n resolves to hide ! 
Vain is the search, presumptuous and abhorr'd, 
Anxious to thee and odious to thy lord. 
Let this suffice ; th ? immutable decree 730 

No force can shake : what is that ought to be. 
Goddess, submit, nor dare our will withstand, 
But dread the pow'r of this avenging hand ; 



BOOK I 31 

Th' united strength of all the gods above 

In vain resists th' omnipotence of Jove." 735 

The° Thund'rer spoke, nor durst the queen reply ; 
A rev'rend horror silenc'd all the sky. 
The feast disturb'd, with sorrow Vulcan saw 
His mother menac'd, and the gods in awe; 
Peace at his heart, and pleasure his design, 740 

Thus interpos'd the architect divine : 
" The wretched quarrels of the mortal state 
Are far unworthy, gods ! of your debate : 
Let men their days in senseless strife employ ; 
We, in eternal peace and constant joy. 745 

Thou, goddess-mother, with our sire comply, 
Nor break the sacred union of the sky : 
Lest, rous'd to rage, he shake the blest abodes, 
Launch the red lightning, and dethrone the gods. 
If you submit, the Thund'rer stands appeas'd. 750 

The gracious pow'r is willing to be pleas'd." 

Thus Vulcan spoke ; and, rising with a bound, 
The double bowl with sparkling nectar crown 7 d, 
Which held to Juno in a cheerful way, 
" Goddess," he cried, "be patient and obey. 755 

Dear as you are, if Jove his arm extend, 
I can but grieve, unable to defend. 
"What god so daring in your aid to move, 



32 POPE'S ILIAD 

Or lift his hand against the force of Jove ? 

Once in your cause I ° felt his matchless might, 760 

Hurl'd headlong downward from th' ethereal height ; 

Toss'd all the day in rapid circles round ; 

Nor, till the sun descended, touch' d the ground : 

Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost ; 

The Sinthians ° rais'd me on the Lemnian coast." 765 

He said, and to her hands the goblet heav'd, 
Which, with a smile, the white-arm'd queen received. 
Then to the rest he filPd ; and, in his turn, 
Each to his lips applied the nectar' d urn. 
Vulcan with awkward grace his office plies, 770 

And unextinguished ° laughter shakes the skies. 

Thus the blest gods the genial day prolong, 
In feasts ambrosial and celestial song. 
Apollo tun'd the lyre ; the muses round 
With voice alternate aid the silver sound. 775 

Meantime the radiant sun, to mortal sight 
Descending swift, rolPd down the rapid light. 
Then to their starry domes the gods depart, 
The shining monuments of Vulcan's art : 
Jove on his couch reclin'd his awful head, 780 

And Juno slumber'd on the golden bed. 



BOOK VI 

THE EPISODES OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED, AND 
OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE 

Now heav'n forsakes the fight ; th' immortals yield 
To human force and human skill the field : 
Dark show'rs of jav'lins fly from foes to foes; 
Now here, now there, the tide of combat flows ; 
While Troy's fam'd streams, that bound the deathful 
plain, 5 

On either side run purple to the main. 

Great Ajax ° first to conquest led the way, 
Broke the thick ranks, and turned the doubtful day. 
The Thracian Acamas his falchion found, 
And hew'd th ? enormous giant to the ground ; 10 

His thund'ring arm a deadly stroke impressed 
Where the black horse-hair nodded o'er his crest : 
Fix'd in his front the brazen weapon lies, 
And seals in endless shades his swimming eyes. 14 

Next Teuthras' son distain'd the sands with blood, 
Axylus, hospitable, rich,, and good : 
In fair Arisbe's walls (his native place) 
d 33 



34 POPE'S ILIAD 

He held his seat ; a friend to human race. 

Fast by the road, his ever-open door 

Oblig'd the wealthy, and relieved the poor. 20 

To stern Tydides now he falls a prey. 

No friend to guard him in the dreadful day ! 

Breathless the good man fell, and by his side 

His faithful servant, old Calesius, died. 

By great Euryalus was Dresus slain, 25 

And next he laid Opheltius on the plain. 
Two twins were near, bold, beautiful, and young, 
From a fair Naiad ° and Bucolion sprung 
(Laomedon's white flocks Bucolion fed, 
That monarch's first-born by a foreign bed ; 30 

In secret woods he won the Naiad's grace, 
And two fair infants crown' d his strong embrace) : 
Here dead they lay in all their youthful charms ; 
The ruthless victor stripped their shining arms. 

Astyalus by Polypoetes fell ; 35 

Ulysses' spear Pidytes sent to hell ° ; 
By Teucer's ° shaft brave Aretaon bled, 
And Nestor's son laid stern Ablerus dead ; 
Great Agamemnon, leader of the brave, 
The mortal wound of rich Elatus gave, 40 

Who held in Pedasus his proud abode, 
And till'd the banks where silver Satnio flow'd. 



BOOK VI 35 

Melanthius by Eurypylus was slain ; 
And Phylacus from Leitus flies in vain. 

Unbless'd Adrastus next at mercy lies 45 

Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize. 
Scared with the din and tumult of the fight, 
His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight, 
Rush'd on a tamarisk's ° strong trunk, and broke 
The shattered chariot from the crooked yoke : 50 

Wide o'er the field, resistless as the wind, 
For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind. 
Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel : 
Atrides o'er him shakes his vengeful steel ; 
The fallen chief in suppliant posture press'd 55 

The victor's knees, and thus his prayer address'd : 

" Oh, spare my youth, and for the life I owe 
Large gifts of price my father shall bestow : 
When fame shall tell that, not in battle slain, 
Thy hollow ships his captive son detain, 60 

Rich heaps of brass shall in thy tent be told,° 
And steel well-temper'd, and persuasive gold." 

He said : compassion touch'd the hero's heart 
He stood suspended with the lifted dart : 
As pity pleaded for his vanquished prize, 65 

Stern Agamemnon swift to vengeance flies, 
And furious thus : " impotent of mind ! 



36 POPE'S ILIAD 

Shall these, shall these Atrides' mercy find ? 

Well hast thou known proud Troy's perfidious land, 

And well her natives merit at thy hand ! 70 

Not one of all the race, nor sex, nor age, 

Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage : 

Ilion shall perish whole, and bury all ; 

Her babes, her infants at the breast, shall fall, 

A dreadful lesson of exampled fate, 75 

To warn the nations, and to curb the great." 

The monarch spoke; the words, with warmth ad- 
dress'd, 
To rigid justice steel'd his brother's breast. 
Fierce from his knees the hapless chief he thrust ; 
The monarch's jav'lin stretch'd him in the dust. 80 
Then, pressing with his foot his panting heart, 
Forth from the slain he tugg'd the reeking dart. 
Old Nestor saw, and rous'd the warriors' rage ! 
" Thus, heroes ! thus the vig'rous combat wage ! 
No son of Mars descend, for servile gains, 85 

To touch the booty, while a foe remains. 
Behold yon glitt'ring host, your future spoil ! 
First gain the conquest, then reward the toil." 

And now had Greece eternal fame acquir'd, 
And frighted Troy within her walls retir'd ; 90 

Had not sage Helenus her state redress'd, 



BOOK VI 37 

Taught by the gods that mov'd his sacred breast : 
Where Hector stood, with great iEneas join'd, 
The seer reveal'd the counsels of his mind : 

" Ye gen'rous chiefs ! on whom th ? immortals lay 95 
The cares and glories of this doubtful day, 
On whom your aids, your country's hopes depend, 
Wise to consult, and active to defend ! 
Here, at our gates, your brave efforts unite, 
Turn back the routed, and forbid the flight; 100 

Ere yet their wives' soft arms the cowards gain, 
The sport and insult of the hostile train. 
When your commands have hearten' d every band, 
Ourselves, here fix'd, will make the dang'rous stand ; 
Press'd as we are, and sore of former fight, 105 

These straits demand our last remains of might. 
Meanwhile, thou, Hector, to the town retire, 
And teach our mother what the gods require : 
Direct the queen to lead th' assembled train 
Of Troy's chief matrons to Minerva's fane ; no 

Unbar the sacred gates, and seek the pow'r 
With offer'd vows, in Ilion's topmost tow'r. 
The largest mantle her rich wardrobes hold, 
Most priz'd for art, and labour'd o'er with gold, 
Before the goddess' honour'd knees be spread; 115 

And twelve young heifers to her altars led. 



38 POPE'S ILIAD 

If so the pow'r aton'd by fervent pray'r, 

Our wives, our infants, and our city spare, 

And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, 

That mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire. 120 

Not thus Achilles taught our hosts to dread, 

Sprung tho' he was from more than mortal bed ; 

Not thus resistless rul'd the stream of fight, 

In rage unbounded, and unmatched in might." 

Hector obedient heard ; and, with a bound, 125 

Leap'd from his trembling chariot to the ground ; 
Thro' all his host, inspiring force, he flies, 
And bids the thunder of the battle rise. 
With rage recruited the bold Trojans glow, 
And turn the tide of conflict on the foe : 130 

Fierce in the front he shakes two dazzling spears ; 
All Greece recedes, and midst her triumph fears : 
Some god, they thought, who rul'd the fate of wars, 
Shot down avenging, from the vault of stars. 

Then thus, aloud : " Ye dauntless Dardans, hear ! 135 
And you whom distant nations send to war ; 
Be mindful of the strength your fathers bore ; 
Be still yourselves and Hector asks no more. 
One hour demands me in the Trojan wall, 
To bid our altars flame, and victims fall : 140 

Nor shall, I trust, the matrons' holy train 



BOOK VI 39 

And rev'rend elders seek the gods in vain." 

This said, with ample strides the hero pass'd ; 
The shield's large orb behind his shoulder cast, 
His neck o'ershading, to his ancle hung ; 145 

And as he march'd the brazen buckler rung. 

Now paus'd the battle (godlike Hector gone), 
When daring Glaucus and great Tydeus' son 
Between both armies met ; the chiefs from far 
Observ'd each other, and had mark'd for war. 150 

Near as they drew, Tydides thus began : 

" What art thou, boldest of the race of man ? 
Our eyes, till now, that aspect ne'er beheld, 
Where fame is reap'd amid th' embattl'd field ; 
Yet far before the troops thou dar'st appear, 155 

And meet a lance the fiercest heroes fear. 
Unhappy they, and born of luckless sires, 
Who tempt our fury when Minerva fires ! 
But if from heav'n, celestial thou descend, 
Know, with immortals we no more contend. 160 

Not long Lycurgus view'd the golden light, 
That daring man who niix'd with gods in fight ; 
Bacchus, and Bacchus' votaries, he drove 
With brandish'd steel from Nyssa's sacred grove ; 
Their consecrated spears lay scatter'd round, 165 

With curling vines and twisted ivy bound 5 



40 POPE'S ILIAD 

While Bacchus headlong sought the briny flood, 
And Thetis' arms received the trembling god. 
Nor fail'd the crime th' immortals' wrath to move 
(Th ? immortals bless'd with endless ease above) ; 170 
Deprived of sight, by their avenging doom, 
Cheerless he breath'd, and wander'd in the gloom : 
Then sunk unpitied to the dire abodes, 
A wretch, accurs'd, and hated by the gods ! 
I brave not heav'n ; but if the fruits of earth 175 

Sustain thy life, and human be thy birth, 
Bold as thou art, too prodigal of breath, 
Approach, and enter the dark gates of death." 

"What, or from whence I am, or who my sire," 
Replied the chief, "can Tydeus' son enquire ? 180 

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground : 
Another race the following spring supplies, 
They fall successive, and successive rise ; 
So generations in their course decay, 185 

So flourish these, when those are pass'd away. 
But if thou still persist to search my birth, 
Then hear a tale that fills the spacious earth : 

"A city stands on Argos' utmost bound 
(Argos the fair, for warlike steeds renown'd) ; 190 

iEolian Sisyphus, with wisdom bless'd, 



BOOK VI 41 

In ancient time the happy walls possessed, 

Then called Ephyre : Glaueus was his son; 

Great Glaueus, father of Bellerophon, 

Who o'er the sons of men in beauty shin'd, 195 

Lov'd for that valour which preserves mankind. 

Then mighty Proetus Argos' sceptre sway'd, 

Whose hard commands Bellerophon obey'd. 

With direful jealousy the monarch rag'd, 

And the brave prince in numerous toils engaged. 200 

For him, Antea° burn'd with lawless flame, 

And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame : 

In vain she tempted the relentless youth, 

Endu'd with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth. 

Fir'd at his scorn, the queen to Proetus fled, 205 

And begg'd revenge for her insulted bed : 

Incens'd he heard, resolving on his fate ; 

But hospitable laws restrained his hate : 

To Lycia the devoted youth he sent, 

With tablets seal'd, that told his dire intent. 210 

Now, bless'd by ev'ry pow'r who guards the good, 

The chief arriv'd at Xanthus' silver flood : 

There Lycia' s monarch paid him honours due : 

Nine days he feasted, and nine bulls he slew. 

But° when the tenth bright morning orient glow'd, 215 

The faithful youth his monarch's mandate show'd : 



42 POPE'S ILIAD 

The fatal tablets, till that instant seal'd, 

The deathful secret to the king reveal'd. 

First, dire Chimaera's conquest was enjoin'd ; 

A mingled monster, of no mortal kind ; 220 

Behind, a dragon's fiery tail was spread; 

A goat's rough body bore a lion's head ; 

Her pitchy nostrils flaky flames expire ; 

Her gaping throat emits infernal fire. 

" This pest he slaughter'd (for he read the skies, 225 
And trusted heav'n's informing prodigies ) ; 
Then met in arms the Solymaean crew 
(Fiercest of men), and those the warrior slew. 
Next the bold Amazons' whole force defied ; 
And conquer'd still, for heav'n was on his side. 230 

" Nor ended here his toils : his Lycian foes, 
At his return, a treach'rous ambush rose, 
With levell'd spears along the winding shore : 
There fell they breathless, and return'd no more. 

" At length the monarch with repentant grief 235 
Confess'd the gods, and god-descended chief; 
His daughter gave, the stranger to detain, 
With half the honours of his ample reign. 
The Lycians grant a chosen space of ground, 
With woods, with vineyards, and with harvests crown'd. 
There long the chief his happy lot possess'd, 241 



BOOK VI 43 

With two brave sons and one fair daughter bless'd 

(Fair ev'n in heav'nly eyes ; her fruitful love 

Crown'd with Sarpedon's birth th' embrace of Jove). 

But when at last, distracted in his mind, 245 

Forsook by heav'n, forsaking human kind, 

Wide o'er th' Aleian field he chose to stray, 

A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way ! 

Woes heap'd on woes consum'd his wasted heart; 

His beauteous daughter fell by Phoebe's dart ; 250 

His eldest-born° by raging Mars was slain 

In combat on the Solymsean plain. 

Hippolochus surviv'd ; from him I came, 

The honour'd author of my birth and name ; 

By his decree I sought the Trojan town, 255 

By his instructions learn to win renown ; 

To stand the first in worth as in command, 

To add new honours to my native land ; 

Before my eyes my mighty sires to place, 

And emulate the glories of our race." 260 

He spoke, and transport fill'd Tydicles' heart ; 
In earth the gen'rous warrior fix'd his dart, 
Then friendly, thus, the Lycian prince address'd : 
"Welcome, my brave hereditary guest ! 
Thus ever let us meet with kind embrace, 265 

Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race. 



44 POPE'S ILIAD 

Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old, 

(Eneus the strong, Bellerophon the bold ; 

Our ancient seat his honoured presence grac'd, 

Where twenty days in genial rites he pass'd. 270 

The parting heroes mutual presents left ; 

A golden goblet was thy grandsire's gift; 

(Eneus a belt of matchless work bestow'd, 

That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glow'd 

(This from his pledge I learn'd, which, safely stor'd 275 

Among my treasures, still adorns my board : 

For Tydeus left me young, when Thebe's wall 

Beheld the sons of Greece untimely fall). 

Mindful of this, in friendship let us join; 

If heav'n our steps to foreign lands incline, 280 

My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine. 

Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield, 

In the full harvest of yon ample field; 

Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore; 

But thou and Diomed be foes no more. 285 

Now change we arms, and prove to either host 

We guard the friendship of the line we boast." 

Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight, 
Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight; 
Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resign' d 290 
(Jove warm'd his bosom and enlarg'd his mind) ; 



BOOK VI 45 

For Diomed's brass arms, of mean device, 

For which nine oxen paid (a vulgar price), 

He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought; 

A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought. 295 

Meantime the guardian of the Trojan state, 
Great Hector, enter'd at the Scsean° gate. 
Beneath the beech-trees' consecrated shades, 
The Trojan matrons and the Trojan maids 
Around him flock'd, all press'd with pious care 300 
For husbands, brothers, sons, engaged in war. 
He bids the train in long procession go, 
And seek the gods, t' avert th' impending woe. 
And now to Priam's stately courts he oame, 
Rais'd on arch'd columns of stupendous frame ; 305 
O'er these a range of marble structure runs ; 
The rich pavilions of his fifty sons, 
In fifty chambers lodged : and rooms of state 
Oppos'd to those, where Priam's daughters sate : 
Twelve domes for them and their lov'd spouses shone, 
Of equal beauty, and of polish'd stone. 311 

Hither great Hector pass'd, nor pass'd unseen 
Of royal Hecuba, his mother queen 
(With her Laodice, whose beauteous face 
Surpass'd the nymphs of Troy's illustrious race). 315 
Long in a strict embrace she held her son, 



46 POPE'S ILIAD 

And press'd his hand, and tender thus begun : 
" Hector !° say, what great occasion calls 
My son from fight, when Greece surrounds our walls ? 
Com'st thou to supplicate th' almighty pow'r, 320 

With lifted hands from Ilion's lofty tow'r ? 
Stay, till I bring the cup with Bacchus crown'd, 
In Jove's high name, to sprinkle on the ground, 
And pay due vows to all the gods around. 
Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul, 325 
And draw new spirits from the gen'rous bowl ; 
Spent as thou art with long laborious fight, 
The brave defender of thy country's right." 

"Far° hence be Bacchus' gifts," the chief rejoin'd; 
" Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind, 330 

Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind. 
Let chiefs abstain, and spare the sacred juice 
To sprinkle to the gods, its better use. 
By me that holy office were profan'd; 
111 fits it me, with human gore distain'd, 335 

To the pure skies these horrid hands to raise, 
Or offer heav'n's great sire polluted praise. 
You, with your matrons, go, a spotless train ! 
And burn rich odours in Minerva's fane. 
The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold, 340 

Most priz'd for art, and labour'd o'er with gold, 



BOOK VI 47 

Before the goddess' honoured knees be spread, 
And twelve young heifers to her altar led. 
So may the pow'r, aton'd by fervent pray'r, 
Our wives, our infants, and our city spare, 345 

And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, 
Who mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire. 
Be this, mother, your religious care; 
I go to rouse soft Paris to the war; 
If yet, not lost to all the sense of shame, 350 

The recreant warrior hear the voice of fame. 
Oh would kind earth the hateful wretch embrace, 
That pest of Troy, that ruin of our race ! 
Deep to the dark abyss might he descend, 
Troy yet should flourish, and my sorrows end." 355 
This heard, she gave command; and summon' d came 
Each noble matron and illustrious dame. 
The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went, 
Where treasured odours breath'd a costly scent. 
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art, 360 

Sidonian maids embroidered ev'ry part, 
Whom from soft Sidon° youthful Paris bore, 
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore. 
Here as the queen revolv'd with careful eyes 
The various textures and the various dyes, 365 

She chose a veil that shone superior far, 



48 POPE'S ILIAD 

And glow'd refulgent as the morning star. 

Herself with this the long procession leads ; 

The train majestically slow proceeds. 

Soon as to Ilion's topmost tow'r they come, 370 

And awful reach the high Palladian dome, 

Antenor's consort, fair Theano, waits 

As Pallas' priestess, and unbars the gates. 

With hands uplifted, and imploring eyes, 

They fill the dome with supplicating cries. 375 

The priestess then the shining veil displays, 

Plac'd on Minerva's knees, and thus she prays : 

" awful goddess ! ever-dreadful maid, 
Troy's strong defence, unconquer'd Pallas, aid! 
Break thou Tydides' spear, and let him fall 380 

Prone on the dust before the Trojan wall. 
So twelve young heifers, guiltless of the yoke, 
Shall fill thy temple with a grateful smoke. 
But thou, aton'd by penitence and pray'r, 
Ourselves, our infants, and our city spare! " 385 

So pray'd the priestess in her holy fane ; 
So vow'd the matrons, but they vow'd in vain. 

While these appear before the pow'r with pray'rs, 
Hector to Paris' lofty dome repairs. 
Himself the mansion rais'd, from ev'ry part 390 

Assembling architects of matchless art. 



BOOK VI 49 

Near Priam's court and Hector's palace stands 
The pompous structure, and the town commands. 
A spear the hero bore of wond'rous strength, 
Of full ten° cubits was the lance's length ; 395 

The steely point with golden ringlets join'd, 
Before him brandished, at each motion shin'd. 
Thus entering, in the glittering rooms he found 
His brother-chief, whose useless arms lay round, 
His eyes delighting with their splendid show, 400 

Bright'ning the shield, and polishing the bow. 
Beside him Helen with her virgins stands, 
Guides their rich labours, and instructs their hands. 

Him thus unactive, with an ardent look 
The prince beheld, and high-resenting spoke: 405 

"Thy hate to Troy is this the time to show 
(0 wretch ill-fated, and thy country's foe) ? 
Paris and Greece against us both conspire, 
Thy close resentment, and their vengeful ire; 
For thee great Ilion's guardian heroes fall, 410 

Till heaps of dead alone defend her wall ; 
For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns, 
And wasteful war in all its fury burns. 
Ungrateful man! deserves not this thy care, 
Our troops to hearten, and our toils to share ? 415 

Rise, or behold the conqu'ring flames ascend, 



50 POPE'S ILIAD 

And all the Phrygian glories at an end." 

"Brother, 'tis just," replied the beauteous youth, 
" Thy free remonstrance proves thy worth and truth: 
Yet charge my absence less, gen'rous chief ! 420 

On hate to Troy, than conscious shame and grief. 
Here, hid from human eyes, thy brother sate, 
And mourn'd in secret his and Dion's fate. 
'Tis now enough : now glory spreads her charms, 
And beauteous Helen calls her chief to arms. 425 

Conquest to-day my happier sword may bless, 
'Tis man's to fight, but heav'n's to give success. 
But while I arm, contain thy ardent mind ; 
Or go, and Paris shall not lag behind." 

He said, nor answer'd Priam's warlike son; 430 

"When Helen thus with lowly grace begun : 
" gen'rous brother ! if the guilty dame 
That caus'd these woes deserve a sister's name ! 
"Would heav'n, ere all these dreadful deeds were done, 
The day that show'd me to the golden sun 435 

Had seen my death ! Why did not whirlwinds bear 
The fatal infant to the fowls of air ? 
Why sunk I not beneath the whelming tide, 
And midst the roarings of the waters died ? 
Heav'n fill'd up all my ills, and I accurs'd 440 

Bore all, and Paris of those ills the worst. 



BOOK VI 51 

Helen at least a braver spouse might claim, 
Warm'd with some virtue, some regard of fame ! 
Now, tir'd with toils, thy fainting limbs recline, 
With toils sustained for Paris' sake and mine : 445 

The gods have link'd our miserable doom, 
Our present woe and infamy to come : 
Wide shall it spread, and last thro' ages long, 
Example sad! and theme of future song." 

The chief replied : " This time forbids to rest : 450 
The Trojan bands, by hostile fury press'd, 
Demand their Hector, and his arm require ; 
The combat urges, and my soul's on fire. 
Urge thou thy knight to march where glory calls, 
And timely join me, ere I leave the walls. 455 

Ere yet I mingle in the direful fray, 
My wife, my infant, claim a moment's stay : 
This day (perhaps the last that sees me here) 
Demands a parting word, a tender tear : 
This day some god, who hates our Trojan land, 460 
May vanquish Hector by a Grecian hand." 

He said, and pass'd with sad-presaging heart, 
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part 5 
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain : 
She, with one maid of all her menial train, 465 

Had thence retir'd; and with her second joy, 



52 POPE'S ILIAD 

The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, 

Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height, 

Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight ; 

There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore, 470 

Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore. 

But he who found not whom his soul desir'd, 
Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fir'd, 
Stood in the gates, and ask'd what way she bent 
Her parting step ; if to the fane she went, 475 

Where late the mourning matrons made resort ; 
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court. 
" Not to the court," replied th' attendant train, 
" Nor, mix'd with matrons, to Minerva's fane : 
To Ilion's steepy tow'r she bent her way, 480 

To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day. 
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword : 
She heard, and trembled for her distant lord ; 
Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly, 
Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye. 485 

The nurse attended with her infant boy, 
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy." 

Hector, this heard, returned without delay ; 
Swift thro' the town he trod his former way ; 
Thro' streets of palaces and walks of state ; 490 

And° met the mourner at the Scsean gate. 



BOOK VI 53 

With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair, 

His blameless wife, Eetion's wealthy heir 

(Cilician Thebe great Eetion sway'd, 

And Hippoplacus' wide-extended shade) : 495 

The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press'd, 

His only hope hung smiling at her breast, 

Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn, 

Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn. 

To this lov'd infant Hector gave the name 500 

Scamandrius, from Scamander's honoured stream: 

Astyanax the Trojans call'd the boy, 

From his great father, the defence of Troy. 

Silent the warrior smiPcl, and, pleas'd, resigned 

To tender passions all his mighty mind : 505 

His beauteous princess cast a mournful look, 

Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke; 

Her bosom laboured with a boding sigh, 

And the big tear stood trembling in her eye. 

"Too daring prince ! ah whither dost thou run ? 510 

Ah too forgetful of thy wife and son ! 

And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be, 

A widow I, a helpless orphan he ! 

For sure such courage length of life denies, 

And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice. 515 

Greece in her single heroes strove in vain ; 



54 POPE'S ILIAD 

Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain ! 

Oh grant me, gods ! ere Hector meets his doom, 

All I can ask of heav'n, an early tomb ! 

So shall my days in one sad tenour run, 520 

And end with sorrows as they first begun. 

No parent now remains, my griefs to share, 

No father's aid, no mother's tender care. 

The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire, 

Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire ! 525 

His fate compassion in the victor bred ; 

Stern as he was, he yet rever'd the dead, 

His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil, 

And laid him decent on the f un'ral pile ; 

Then raised a mountain where his bones were burn'd; 530 

The mountain nymphs the rural tomb adorn'd ; 

Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow 

A barren shade, and in his honour grow. 

" By the same arm my sev'n brave brothers fell ; 
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell ; 535 

While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed, 
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled ! 
My'mother liv'd to bear the victor's bands, 
The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands : 
Eedeem'd too late, she scarce beheld again 540 

Her pleasing empire and her native plain, 



BOOK VI 55 

When, ah ! oppressed by life-consuming woe, 
She fell a victim to Diana's bow. 

" Yet while my Hector still survives, I see 
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee. 545 

Alas ! my parents, brothers, kindred, all, 
Once more will perish if my Hector fall. 
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share ; 
Oh prove a husband's and a father's care ! 
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy, 550 

Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy : 
Thou, from this tow'r defend th' important post ; 
There Agamemnon pointshis dreadful host, 
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain, 
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train. 555 

Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have giv'n, 
Or led by hopes, or dictated from heav'n. 
Let others in the field their arms employ, 
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy." 

The chief replied : " That post shall be my care, 560 
Nor that alone, but all the works of war. 
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd, 
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the 

ground, 
Attaint the lustre of my former name, 
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame ? 565 



56 POPE'S ILIAD 

My early youth was bred to martial pains, 

My soul impels me to th' embattl'd plains : 

Let me be foremost to defend the throne, 

And guard my father's glories, and my own. 

Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates 570 

(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates !) 5 

The day when thou, imperial Troy ! must bend, 

And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. 

And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, 

My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, 575 

Not Priam's hoary hairs defiPd with gore, 

Not all my brothers gasping on the shore ; 

As thine, Andromache ! thy griefs I dread ; 

I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led ! 

In Argive looms our battles to design, 580 

And woes of which so large a part was thine ! 

To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring 

The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring. 

There, while you groan beneath the load of life, 

They cry, ' Behold the mighty Hector's wife ! ' 585 

Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see, 

Embitters all thy woes by naming me. 

The thoughts of glory past, and present shame, 

A thousand griefs, shall waken at the name ! 

May I lie cold before that dreadful day, 590 



BOOK VI 57 

Press'd with a load of monumental clay ! 
Thy Hector, wrapp'd in everlasting sleep, 
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep." 

Thus having spoke, th' illustrious chief of Troy 
Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy. 595 
The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast, 
Scar'd at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest. 
With secret pleasure each fond parent smil'd, 
And Hector hasted to relieve his child ; 
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound, 600 

And placed the beaming helmet on the ground. 
Then kiss'd the child, and, lifting high in air, 
Thus to the gods preferred a father's pray'r : 

" thou whose glory fills th' ethereal throne, 
And all ye deathless powers ! protect my son ! 605 

Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown, 
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown, 
Against his country's foes the war to wage, 
And rise the Hector of the future age ! 
So when, triumphant from successful toils, 610 

Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils, 
Whole hosts may hail him with deserv'd acclaim, 
And say, ' This chief transcends his father's fame ' : 
While pleas'd, amidst the gen'ral shouts of Troy, 
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy." 615 



58 POPE'S ILIAD 

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms, 
Kestor'd the pleasing burthen to her arms ; 
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid, 
Hush/d to repose, and with a smile survey'd. 
The troubled pleasure soon chastis'd by fear, 620 

She mingled with the smile a tender tear. 
The soften' d chief with kind compassion view'd, 
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued : 

" Andromache ! my soul's far better part, 
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart ? 625 
No hostile hand can antedate my doom, 
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb. 
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth, 
And such the hard condition of our birth. 
No force can then resist, no flight can save ; 630 

All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. 
No more — but hasten to thy tasks at home, 
There guide the spindle, and direct the loom : 
Me glory summons to the martial scene ; 
The field of combat is the sphere for men. 635 

Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim, 
The first in danger as the first in fame." 

Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes 
His tow'ring helmet, black with shading plumes. 
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh, 640 



BOOK VI 59 

Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye, 

That streamed at ev'ry look : then, moving slow, 

Sought her own palace, and indulg'd her woe. 

There, while her tears deplor'd the godlike man, 

Thro' all her train the soft infection ran ; 645 

The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed, 

And mourn the living Hector as the dead. 

But now, no longer deaf to honour's call, 
Forth issues Paris from the palace wall. 
In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray, 650 

Swift thro' the town the warrior bends his way. 
The wanton courser thus, with reins unbound, 
Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground ; 
Pamper'd and proud he seeks the wonted tides, 
And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides : 655 
His head now freed he tosses to the skies ; 
His mane dishevell'd o'er his shoulders flies; 
He snuffs the females in the distant plain, 
And springs, exulting, to his fields again. 
With equal triumph, sprightly, bold, and gay, 660 

In arms refulgent as the god of day, 
The son of Priam, glorying in his might, 
Eush'd forth with Hector to the fields of fight. 
And now the warriors passing on the way, 
The graceful Paris first excus'd his stay. 665 



60 POPE'S ILIAD 

To whom the noble Hector thus replied : 

" chief ! in blood, and now in arms, allied ! 

Thy pow'r in war with justice none contest ; 

Known is thy courage, and thy strength confessed. 

What pity, sloth should seize a soul so brave, 670 

Or godlike Paris live a woman's slave ! 

My heart weeps blood at what the Trojans say, 

And hopes thy deed shall wipe the stain away. 

Haste then, in all their glorious labours share ; 

For much they suffer, for thy sake, in war. 675 

These ills shall cease, whene'er by Jove's decree 

We crown the bowl to Heav'n and Liberty : 

While the proud foe his frustrate triumphs mourns, 

And Greece indignant thro' her seas returns." 



BOOK XXII 

THE DEATH OF HECTOR 

Thus to their bulwarks, smit with panic fear, 
The herded Ilians rush like driven deer ; 
There safe, they wipe the briny drops away, 
And drown in bowls the labours of the day. 
Close to the walls, advancing o*er the fields, 5 

Beneath one roof ° of well-compacted shields, 
March, bending on, the Greeks' embodied powers, 
Far-stretching in the shade of Trojan tow'rs. 
Great Hector singly stay'd ; chain'd down by fate, 
There fix'd he stood before the Scaean gate ; 10 

Still his bold arms determined to employ, 
The guardian still of long-defended Troy. 

Apollo now to tir'd Achilles turns 
(The pow'r confessed in all his glory burns), 
"And what," he cries, " has Peleus' son in view, 15 
With mortal speed a godhead to pursue ? 
For not to thee to know the gods is giv'n, 
Unskilled to trace the latent marks of heav'n. 

61 



62 POPE'S ILIAD 

What boots thee now that Troy forsook the plain ? 
Vain thy past labour, and thy present vain : 20 

Safe in their walls are now her troops bestow'd, 
While here thy frantic rage attacks a god." 

The chief incensed : " Too partial god of day ! 
To check my conquests in the middle way : 
How few in Ilion else had refuge found ! 25 

What gasping numbers now had bit the ground ! 
Thou robb'st me of a glory justly mine, 
Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine : 
Mean fame, alas ! for one of heav'nly strain, 
To cheat a mortal who repines in vain." 30 

Then to the city, terrible and strong, 
With high and haughty steps he tower'd along : 
So the proud courser, victor of the prize, 
To the near goal with double ardour flies. 
Him, as he blazing shot across the field, 35 

The careful eyes of Priam first beheld. 
Not half so dreadful rises to the sight, 
Thro' the thick gloom of some tempestuous night, 
Orion's dog (the year when autumn weighs), 
And o'er the feebler stars exerts his rays ; 40 

Terrific glory ! for his burning breath 
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death. 
So flam'd his fiery mail. Then wept the sage : 



BOOK XXII 63 

He strikes his rev'rend head, now white with age ; 

He lifts his withered arms ; obtests the skies ; 45 

He calls his much-lov'd son with feeble cries : 

The son, resolv'd Achilles' force to dare, 

Full at the Scsean gate expects the war : 

While the sad father on the rampart stands, 

And thus adjures him with extended hands : 50 

"Ah stay not, stay not ! guardless and alone 
Hector, my lov'd, my dearest, bravest son ! 
Methinks already I behold thee slain, 
And stretch' d beneath that fury of the plain. 
Implacable Achilles ! might' st thou be 55 

To all the gods no dearer than to me ! 
Thee vultures wild should scatter round the shore, 
And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore ! 
How many valiant sons I late enjoy 'd, 
Valiant in vain ! by thy curs'd arm destroyed : 60 

Or, worse than slaughtered, sold in distant isles 
To shameful bondage and unworthy toils. 
Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore, 
Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore 
And lov'd Lycaon ; now perhaps no more ! 65 

Oh ! if in yonder hostile camp they live, 
What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give 
(Their grand sire's wealth, by right of birth their own, 



64 POPE'S ILIAD 

Consigned his daughter with Lelegia's throne) : 

But if (which heav'n forbid) already lost, 70 

All pale they wander on the Stygian coast, 

What sorrows then must their sad mother know, 

What anguish I ! unutterable woe ! 

Yet less that anguish, less to her, to me, 

Less to all Troy, if not deprived of thee. 75 

Yet shun Achilles ! enter yet the wall ; 

And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all ! 

Save thy dear life : or if a soul so brave 

Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save. 

Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs ; 80 

While yet thy father feels the woes he bears, 

Yet curs'd with sense ! a wretch, whom in his rage 

(All trembling on the verge of helpless age) 

Great Jove has plac'd, sad spectacle of pain ! 

The bitter dregs of fortune's cup to drain : 85 

To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes, 

And number all his days by miseries ! 

My heroes slain, my bridal bed o'erturn'd, 

My daughters ravish'd, and my city burn'd, 

My bleeding infants dash'd against the floor ; 90 

These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more ! 

Perhaps ev'n I, reserv'd by angry fate 

The last sad relic of my ruin'd state 



BOOK XXII 65 

(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness !), must fall 

And stain the pavement of my regal hall ; 95 

Where famish' d dogs, late guardians of my door, 

Shall lick their mangled master's spatter'd gore. 

Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods ! 'twas well : 

Well that they perish'd, for in fight they fell. 

Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best r 100 

Struck thro' with wounds, all honest on the breast. 

But when the fates, in fulness of their rage, 

Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age, 

In dust the rev'rend lineaments deform, 

And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm ; 105 

This, this is misery ! the last, the worst, 

That man can feel : man, fated to be curs'd ! " 

He said, and acting what no words could say, 
Kent from his head the silver locks away. 
With him the mournful mother bears a part: no 

Yet all their sorrows turn not Hector's heart : 
The zone unbrac'd, her bosom she display'd ; 
And thus, fast-falling the salt tears, she said : 

" Have mercy on me, my son ! revere 
The words of age ; attend a parent's pray'r ! 115 

If ever thee in these fond arms I press'd, 
Or still'd thy infant clamours at this breast ; 
Ah ! do not thus our helpless years forego, 



66 POPE'S ILIAD 

But, by our walls secur'd, repel the foe. 

Against his rage if singly thou proceed, 120 

Shouldst thou (but heav'n avert it!), shouldst thou 

bleed, 
]STor must thy corse lie honour'd on the bier, 
Nor spouse, nor mother, grace thee with a tear; 
Far from our pious rites, those dear remains 
Must feast the vultures on the naked plains." 125 

So they, while down their cheeks the torrents roll : 
But fix'd remains the purpose of his soul ; 
Kesolv'd he stands, and with a fiery glance 
Expects the hero's terrible advance. 
So, rolPd up in his den, the swelling snake 130 

Beholds the traveller approach the brake ; 
When, fed with noxious herbs, his turgid veins 
Have gathered half the poisons of the plains ; 
He burns, he stiffens with collected ire, 
And his red eyeballs glare with living fire. 135 

Beneath a turret, on his shield reclin'd, 
He stood, and question' d thus his mighty mind : 

" Where lies my way ? To enter in the wall ? 
Honour and shame tli' ungen'rous thought recall : 
Shall proud Polydamas before the gate 140 

Proclaim his counsels are obey'd too late, 
Which timely followed but the former night, 



BOOK XXII 67 

What numbers had been sav'd by Hector's flight ? 

That wise advice rejected with disdain, 

I feel my folly in my people slain. 145 

Methinks my suffering country's voice I hear, 

But most, her worthless sons insult my ear, 

On my rash courage charge the chance of war, 

And blame those virtues which they cannot share. 

No — if I e'er return, return I must 150 

Glorious, my country's terror laid in dust : 

Or if I perish, let her see me fall 

In field at least, and fighting for her wall. 

And yet suppose these measures I forego, 

Approach unarm'd, and parley with the foe, 155 

The warrior-shield, the helm, and lance lay down, 

And treat on terms of peace to save the town : 

The wife withheld, the treasure ill-detain'd 

(Cause of the war, and grievance of the land), 

With honourable justice to restore ; 160 

And add half Ilion's yet remaining store, 

Which Troy shall, sworn, produce ; that injur'd Greece 

May share our wealth, and leave our walls in peace. 

But why this thought ? Unarm'd if I should go, 

What hope of mercy from this vengeful foe, 165 

But woman-like to fall, and fall without a blow ? 

We greet not here as man conversing man, 



68 POPE'S ILIAD 

Met at an oak or journeying o'er a plain; 

No season now for calm, familiar talk, 

Like youths and maidens in an ev'ning walk : 170 

War is our business, but to whom is giv'n 

To die or triumph, that determine heav'n ! " 

Thus pond'ring, like a god the Greek drew nigh : 
His dreadful plumage nodded from on high ; 
The Pelian jav'lin, in his better hand, 175 

Shot trembling rays that glitter'd o'er the land ; 
And on his breast the beamy splendours shone 
Like Jove's own light'ning, or the rising sun. 
As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise, 
Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies : 180 
He leaves the gates, he leaves the walls behind ; 
Achilles follows like the winged wind. 
Thus at the panting dove the falcon flies 
(The swiftest racer of the liquid skies) ; 
Just when he holds, or thinks he holds, his prey, 185 
Obliquely wheeling thro' th' aerial way, 
With open beak and shrilling cries he springs, 
And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings : 
No less fore-right° the rapid chase they held, 
One urg'd by fury, one by fear impell'd ; 190 

Now circling round the walls their course maintain, 
Where the high watch-tow'r overlooks the plain 5 



BOOK XXII 69 

Now where the fig-trees spread their umbrage broad 

(A wider compass), smoke along the road. 

Next by Scamander's double source they bound, 195 

Where two f am'd fountains burst the parted ground : 

This hot thro' scorching clefts is seen to rise, 

With exhalations steaming to the skies ; 

That the green banks in summer's heat overflows, 

Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows. 200 

Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills, 

Whose polish' d bed receives the falling rills ; 

Where Trojan dames (ere yet alarm'd by Greece) 

Wash'd their fair garments in the days of peace. 

By these they pass'd, one chasing, one in flight 205 

(The mighty fled, pursu'd by stronger might) ; 

Swift was the course ; no vulgar prize they play, 

No vulgar victim must reward the day 

(Such as in races crown the speedy strife) : 

The prize contended was great Hector's life. 210 

As when some hero's fun'rals are decreed, 
In grateful honour of the mighty dead ; 
Where high rewards the vig'rous youth inflame 
(Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame), 
. The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal, 215 

And with them turns the rais'd spectator's soul : 
Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly; 



70 POPE'S ILIAD 

The gazing gods lean forward from the sky : 

To whom, while eager on the chase they look, 

The sire of mortals and immortals spoke : 220 

" Unworthy sight ! the man belov'd of heav'n, 
Behold, inglorious round yon city driv'n ! 
My heart partakes the gen'rous Hector's pain ; 
Hector, whose zeal whole hecatombs has slain, 
Whose grateful fumes the gods received with joy, 225 
From Ida's summits and the tow'rs of Troy : 
Now see him flying ! to his fears resigned, 
And Fate and fierce Achilles close behind. 
Consult, ye pow'rs ('tis worthy your debate), 
Whether to snatch him from impending fate, 230 

Or let him bear, by stern Pelides slain 
(Good as he is), the lot imposed on man ? " 

Then Pallas thus : " Shall he whose vengeance 
forms 
The forky bolt, and blackens heav'n with storms, 
Shall he prolong one Trojan's forfeit breath, 235 

A man, a mortal, pre-ordain'd to death ? 
And will no murmurs fill the courts above ? 
No gods indignant blame their partial Jove ? " 

" Go then," returned the sire, " without delay ; 
Exert thy will : I give the fates their way." 240 

Swift at the mandate pleas'd Tritonia flies, 



BOOK XXII 71 

And stoops impetuous from the cleaving skies. 

As thro' the forest, o'er the vale and lawn, 
The well-breath'd beagle drives the flying fawn ; 
In vain he tries the covert of the brakes, 245 

Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes : 
Sure of the vaponr in the tainted dews, 
The certain hound his various maze pursues : 
Thus step by step, where'er the Trojan wheel'd, 
There swift Achilles compass'd round the field. 250 
Oft as to reach the Dardan gates he bends, 
And hopes th' assistance of his pitying friends 
(Whose show'ring arrows, as he cours'd below, 
From the high turrets might oppress the foe), 
So oft Achilles turns him to the plain : 255 

He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain. 
As° men in slumbers seem with speedy pace 
One to pursne, and one to lead the chase, 
Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake, 
Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake : 260 

No less the lab'ring heroes pant and strain ; 
While that but flies, and this pursues, in vain. 

What god, Muse ! assisted Hector's force, 
With fate itself so long to hold the course ! 
Phoebus it was : who, in his latest hour, 265 

Endu'd his knees with strength, his nerves with pow'r. 



72 POPE'S ILIAD 

And great Achilles, lest some Greek's advance 
Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance, 
Sign'd to the troops, to yield his foe the way, 
And leave untouched the honours of the day. 270 

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show 
The fates of mortal men and things below : 
Here each contending hero's lot he tries, 
And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies. 
Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector's fate ; 275 
Heavy with death it sinks, and hell° receives the 
weight. 

Then Phoebus left him. Fierce Minerva flies 
To stern Pelides, and, triumphing, cries : 
" lov'd of Jove ! this day our labours cease, 
And conquest blazes with full beams on Greece. 280 
Great Hector falls ; that Hector fam'd so far, 
Drunk with renown, insatiable of war, 
Palls by thy hand and mine ! nor force nor flight 
Shall more avail him, nor his god of light. 
See, where in vain he supplicates above, 285 

Eoll'd at the feet of unrelenting Jove ! 
Kest here : myself will lead the Trojan on, 
And urge to meet the fate he cannot shun." 

Her voice divine the chief with joyful mind 
Obey'd; and rested, on his lance reclin'd; 290 



BOOK XXII 73 

While like Deiphobus the martial dame 
(Her face, her gesture, and her arms, the same), 
In show an aid, by hapless Hector's side 
Approached, and greets him thus with voice belied : 

" Too long, Hector ! have I borne the sight 295 
Of this distress, and sorrowed in thy flight : 
It fits us now a noble stand to make, 
And here, as brothers, equal fates partake.'' 

Then he : " prince! allied in blood and fame, 
Dearer than all that own a brother's name ; 300 

Of all that Hecuba to Priam bore, 
Long tried, long lov'd; much lov'd, but honour'd 

more ! 
Since you of all our num'rous race alone 
Defend my life, regardless of your own." 

Again the goddess : " Much my father's pray'r, 305 
And much my mother's, press'd me to forbear : 
My friends embrac'd my knees, adjur'd my stay, 
But stronger love impell'd, and I obey. 
Come then, the glorious conflict let us try, 
Let the steel sparkle and the jav'lin fly ; 310 

Or let us stretch Achilles on the field, 
Or to his arm our bloody trophies yield." 

Fraudf ul she said ; then swiftly march'd before ; 
The Dardan hero shuns his foe no more. 



74 POPE'S ILIAD 

Sternly they met. The silence Hector broke; 315 

His dreadful plumage nodded as he spoke : 

" Enough, son of Peleus ! Troy has view'd 
Her walls thrice circled, and her chief pursu'd. 
But now some god within me bids me try 
Thine or my fate : I kill thee or I die. 320 

Yet on the verge of battle let us stay, 
And for a moment's space suspend the day : 
Let heavVs high pow'rs be calFd to arbitrate 
The just conditions of this stern debate 
(Eternal witnesses of all below, 325 

And faithful guardians of the treasur'd vow !) : 
To them I swear : if, victor in the strife, 
Jove by these hands shall shed thy noble life, 
ISTo vile dishonour shall thy corse pursue ; 
Stripped of its arms alone (the conqu'ror's due), 330 
The rest to Greece uninjur'd I'll restore : 
ISTow plight thy mutual oath, I ask no more." 

" Talk not of oaths," the dreadful chief replies, 
While anger flash'd from his disdainful eyes, 
" Detested as thou art, and ought to be, 335 

Nor oath nor pact Achilles plights with thee ; 
Such pacts as lambs and rabid wolves combine, 
Such leagues as men and furious lions join, 
To such I call the gods ! one constant state 



BOOK XXII 75 

Of lasting rancour and eternal hate : 340 

No thought but rage, and never-ceasing strife, 

Till death extinguish rage, and thought and life. 

Rouse then thy forces this important hour, 

Collect thy soul, and call forth all thy pow'r. 

]STo farther subterfuge, no farther chance ; 345 

'Tis Pallas, Pallas gives thee to my lance. 

Each Grecian ghost by thee deprived of breath, 

Now hovers round, and calls thee to thy death." 

He spoke, and launched his jav'lin at the foe ; 
But Hector shunn'd the meditated blow: 350 

He stoop'd, while o'er his head the flying spear 
Sung innocent, and spent its force in air. 
Minerva watch' d it falling on the land, 
Then drew, and gave to great Achilles' hand, 
Unseen of Hector, who, elate with joy, 355 

Now shakes his lance, and braves the dread of Troy : 

" The life you boasted to that jav'lin giv'n, 
Prince ! you have miss'd. My fate depends on heav'n. 
To thee (presumptuous as thou art) unknown 
Or what must prove my fortune or thy own. 360 

Boasting is but an art, our fears to blind, 
And with false terrors sink another's mind. 
But know, whatever fate I am to try, 
By no dishonest wound shall Hector die ; 



76 POPE'S ILIAD 

I shall not fall a fugitive at least, 365 

My soul shall bravely issue from my breast. 
But first, try thou my arm ; and may this dart 
End all my country's woes, deep buried in thy heart ! " 

The weapon flew, its course unerring held ; 
Unerring, but the heav'nly shield repelPd 370 

The mortal dart ; resulting with a bound 
From off the ringing orb, it struck the ground. 
Hector beheld his jav'lin fall in vain, 
Nor other lance nor other hope remain ; 
He calls De'iphobus, demands a spear, 375 

In vain, for no De'iphobus was there. 
All comfortless he stands ; then, with a sigh : 
" 'Tis so — heav'n wills it, and my hour is nigh ! 
I deem'd De'iphobus had heard my call, 
But he secure lies guarded in the wall. 380 

A god deceived me ; Pallas, 'twas thy deed : 
Death and black fate approach ! 7 Tis I must bleed. 
No refuge now, no succour from above, 
Great Jove deserts me, and the son of Jove, 
Propitious once and kind ! Then welcome fate ! 385 
'Tis true I perish, yet I perish great : 
Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire, 
Let future ages hear it, and admire ! " 

Pierce, at the word, his weighty sword he drew, 



BOOK XXII 77 

And, all collected, on Achilles flew. 39 o 

So Jove's bold bird, high balanced in the air, 
Stoops from the clouds to truss the quiv'ring hare. 
Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares ; 
Before his breast the flaming shield he bears, 
Eefulgent orb ! above his fourfold cone 395 

The gilded horse-hair sparkled in the sun, 
Nodding at ev'ry step (Vulcanian frame !), 
And as he mov'd, his figure seem'd on flame. 
As radiant Hesper shines with keener light, 
Far-beaming o'er the silver host of night, 400 

When all the starry train emblaze the sphere : 
So shone the point of great Achilles' spear. 
In his right hand he waves the weapon round, 
Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound : 
But° the rich mail Patroclus lately wore, 405 

Securely cas'd the warrior's body o'er. 
One place at length he spies, to let in fate, 
Where 'twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate 
Gave entrance : thro' that penetrable part 
Furious he drove the well-directed dart : 410 

Nor -pierc'd the windpipe yet, nor took the pow'r 
Of speech, unhappy ! from thy dying hour. 
Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies, 
While thus, triumphing, stern Achilles cries ; 



78 POPE'S ILIAD 

66 At last is Hector stretched upon the plain, 415 

Who fear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain : 
Then, prince ! you should have fear'd what now you 

feel ; 
Achilles absent was Achilles still. 
Yet a short space the great avenger stay'd, 
Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. 420 

Peaceful he sleeps, w r ith all our rites adorn' d, 
For ever honoured, and for ever mourn' d : 
While, cast to all the rage of hostile pow'r, 
Thee birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour." 

Then Hector, fainting at th' approach of death : 425 
" By thy own soul ! by those who gave thee breath ! 
By all the sacred prevalence of pray'r ; 
Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear ! 
The common rites of sepulture bestow, 
To soothe a father's and a mother's woe ; 430 

Let their large gifts procure an urn at least, 
And Hector's ashes in his country rest." 

" No, wretch accurs'd ! " relentless he replies 
(Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes), 
"Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, 
Nor all the sacred prevalence of pray'r. 436 

Could I myself the bloody banquet join ! 
No — to° the dogs that carcase I resign. 



BOOK XXII 79 

Should Troy to bribe me bring forth all her store, 
And, giving thousands, offer thousands more ; 440 

Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame, 
Drain their whole realm to buy one fun'ral flame ; 
Their Hector on the pile they should not see, 
Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee." 

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew : 445 

" Thy rage, implacable ! too well I knew : 
The Furies that relentless breast have steeFd, 
And curs'd thee with a heart that cannot yield. 
Yet think, a day will come, when fate's decree 
And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee ; 450 
Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate, 
And stretch thee here, before this Scaean gate." 

He ceas'd : the fates suppressed his laboring breath, 
And his eyes stiff en'd at the hand of death ; 
To the dark realm the spirit wings its w r ay 455 

(The manly body left a load of clay), 
And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, 
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost ! 

Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes 
O'er the dead hero, thus (unheard) replies : 460 

" Die thou the first ! when Jove and heav'n ordain, 
I follow thee." He said, and stripped the slain. 
Then, forcing backward from the gaping wound 



80 POPE'S ILIAD 

The reeking jav'lin, cast it on the ground. 

The thronging Greeks behold, with wond'ring eyes, 465 

His manly beauty and superior size : 

While some, ignobler, the great dead deface 

With wounds ungen'rous, or with taunts disgrace. 

" How chang'd that Hector ! who, like Jove, of late 

Sent lightning on our fleets and scatter'd fate ! " 470 

High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, 
Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands ; 
And thus aloud, while all the host attends : 
" Princes and leaders ! countrymen and friends ! 
Since now at length the powerful will of heav'n 475 
The dire destroyer to our arm has giv'n, 
Is not Troy f alPn already ? Haste, ye pow'rs ! 
See if already their deserted tow'rs 
Are left unmanned ; or if they yet retain 
The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain. 480 

But what is Troy, or glory what to me ? 
Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee, 
Divine Patroclus ! Death has seaPd his eyes ; 
Unwept, unhonour'd, uninterr'd he lies ! 
Can his dear image from my soul depart, 485 

Long as the vital spirit moves my heart ? 
If, in the melancholy shades below, 
The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow. 



BOOK XXII 81 

Yet mine shall sacred last ; mine, undecay'd, 

Burn on thro' death, and animate my shade. 490 

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring 

The corse of Hector, and your paeans sing. 

Be this the song, slow moving tow'rd the shore, 

( Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.' " 

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred 495 
(Unworthy of himself, and of the dead) ; 
The nervous ancles bor'd, his feet he bound 
With thongs inserted thro' the double wound ; 
These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain, 
His graceful head was trail'd along the plain. 500 

Proud on his car th' insulting victor stood, 
And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood. 
He smites the steeds ; the rapid chariot flies ; 
The sudden clouds of circling dust arise. 
Now lost is all that formidable air ; 505 

The face divine and long-descending hair 
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand ; 
Deform'd, dishonoured, in his native land ! 
Giv'n to the rage of an insulting throng ! 
And, in his parent's sight, now dragg'd along! 510 

The mother first beheld with sad survey ; 
She rent her tresses, venerably grey, 
And cast far off the regal veils away. 

G 



82 POPE'S ILIAD 

With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans, 

While the sad father answers groans with groans ; 515 

Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'ernow, 

And the whole city wears one face of woe : 

No less than if the rage of hostile fires, 

From her foundations curling to her spires, 

O'er the proud citadel at length should rise, 520 

And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies. 

The wretched monarch of the falling state, 

Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate : 

Scarce the whole people stop his desp'rate course, 

While strong affliction gives the feeble force : 525 

Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro, 

In all the raging impotence of woe. 

At length he roll'd in dust, and thus begun, 

Imploring all, and naming one by one : 

" Ah ! let me, let me go where sorrow calls ; 530 

I, only I, will issue from your walls 

(Guide or companion, friends ! I ask ye none), 

And bow before the murderer of my son ; 

My grief perhaps his pity may engage ; 

Perhaps at least he may respect my age. 535 

He has a father, too ; a man like me ; 

One not exempt from age and misery 

(Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace 



BOOK XXII 83 

Begot this pest of me and all my race). 

How many valiant sons, in early bloom, 540 

Has that curs'd hand sent headlong to the tomb ! 

Thee, Hector! last; thy loss (divinely brave!) 

Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave. 

Oh had thy gentle spirit pass'd in peace, 

The son expiring in the sire's embrace, 545 

While both thy parents wept thy fatal hour, 

And, bending o'er thee, mix'd the tender show'r ! 

Some comfort that had been, some sad relief, 

To melt in full satiety of grief ! " 

Thus wail'd the father, grov'ling on the ground, 550 
And all the eyes of Ilion streamed around. 

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears 
(A mourning princess, and a train in tears) : 
"Ah! why has heav'n prolonged this hated breath, 
Patient of honours, to behold thy death? 555 

Hector ! late thy parents' pride and joy, 
The boast of nations ! the defence of Troy ! 
To whom her safety and her fame she ow'd, 
Her chief, her hero, and almost her god ! 
fatal change ! become in one sad day 560 

A senseless corse ! inanimated clay ! " 

But not as yet the fatal news had spread 
To fair Andromache, of Hector dead ; 



84 POPE'S ILIAD 

As yet no messenger had told his fate, 

Nor ev'n his stay without the Scaean gate. 565 

Far in the close recesses of the dome, 

Pensive she plied the melancholy loom ; 

A growing work employ'd her secret hours, 

Confus'dly gay with intermingled flow'rs. 

Her fair-hair'd handmaids heat the brazen urn, 570 

The bath preparing for her lord's return : 

In vain : alas ! her lord returns no more ! 

Unbath'd he lies, and bleeds along the shore ! 

Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear, 

And all her members shake with sudden fear; 575 

Forth from her iv'ry hand the shuttle falls, 

As thus, astonish' d, to her maids she calls: 

" Ah, follow me!" she cried ; " what plaintive noise 
Invades my ear ? 'Tis sure my mother's voice. 
My falt'ring knees their trembling frame desert, 580 
A pulse unusual nutters at my heart. 
Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate 
(Ye gods avert it !) threats the Trojan state. 
Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest ! 
But much I fear my Hector's dauntless breast 585 

Confronts Achilles ; chas'd along the plain, 
Shut from our walls ! I fear, I fear him slain ! 
Safe in the crowd he ever scorn' d to wait, 



BOOK XXII 85 

And sought for glory in the jaws of fate : 

Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath, 590 

Now quench'd for ever in the arms of death." 

She spoke ; and, furious, with distracted pace, 
Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face, 
Flies thro' the dome (the maids her step pursue), 
And mounts the walls, and sends around her view. 595 
Too soon her eyes the killing object found, 
The godlike Hector dragg'd along the ground. 
A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes : 
She faints, she falls ; her breath, her colour flies. 
Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, 600 
The net that held them, and the wreath that crown'd, 
The veil and diadem, flew far away 
(The gift of Venus on her bridal day). 
Around, a train of weeping sisters stands, 
To raise her sinking with assistant hands. 605 

Scarce from the verge of death recall 7 d, again 
She faints, or but recovers to complain : 

" wretched husband of a wretched wife ! 
Born with one fate, to one unhappy life ! 
For° sure one star its baneful beam displayed 610 

On Priam's roof and Hippoplaeia's shade. 
From difFrent parents, different climes, we came, 
At different periods, yet our fate the same ! 



86 POPE'S ILIAD 

Why was my birth to great Eetion ow'd, 

And why was all that tender care bestow'd? 615 

Would I had never been ! — thou, the ghost 

Of my dead husband ! miserably lost ! 

Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone ! 

And I abandoned, desolate, alone ! 

An only child, once comfort of my pains, 620 

Sad product now of hapless love, remains ! 

No more to smile upon his sire ! no friend 

To help him now ! no father to defend ! 

For should he 'scape the sword, the common doom, 

What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come ! 625 

Ev'n from his own paternal roof expell'd, 

Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field. 

The day that to the shades the father sends, 

Robs the sad orphan of his father's friends : 

He, wretched outcast of mankind ! appears 630 

For ever sad, for ever bath'd in tears ; 

Amongst the happy, unregarded he 

Hangs on the robe or trembles at the knee ; 

While those his father's former bounty fed, 

Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread : 635 

The kindest but his present wants allay, 

To leave him wretched the succeeding day. 

Frugal compassion ! Heedless, they who boast 



BOOK XXII 87 

Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, 

Shall cry, ' Begone !° thy father feasts not here ' : 640 

The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. 

Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, 

To my sad soul Astyanax appears ! 

Forc'd by repeated insults to return, 

And to his widow'd mother vainly mourn, 645 

He who, with tender delicacy bred, 

With princes sported, and on dainties fed, 

And, when still ev'ning gave him up to rest, 

Sunk soft in down upon the nurse's breast, 649 

Must — ah ! what must he not ? Whom Ilion calls . 

Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls, 

Is now that name no more, unhappy boy ! 

Since now no more the father guards his Troy. 

But thou, my Hector ! liest expos'd in air, 

Far from thy parents' and thy consort's care, 655 

Whose hand in vain, directed by her love, 

The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove. 

Now to devouring flames be these a prey, 

Useless to thee, from this accursed day ! 

Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid, 660 

An honour to the living, not the dead ! " 

So spake the mournful dame : her matrons hear, 
Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear. 



BOOK XXIV 

THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY OE HECTOR 

Now from the finish'd games the Grecian band 
Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand : 
All stretch' d at ease the genial banquet share, 
And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care. 
Not so Achilles : he, to grief resign'd, 5 

His friend's dear image present to his mind, 
Takes his sad couch, more unobserv'd to weep, 
Nor tastes the gifts of all-composing sleep ; 
Restless he roll'd around his weary bed, 
And all his soul on his Patroclus fed : 10 

The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind, 
That youthful vigour, and that manly mind, 
What toils they shar'd, what martial works they 

wrought, 
What seas they measur'd, and what fields they fought ; 
All pass'd before him in rememb'rance dear, 15 

Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear. 
And now supine, now prone, the hero lay, 
Now shifts his side, impatient for the day ; 



BOOK XXIV 89 

Then starting up, disconsolate he goes 

Wide on the lonely beach to vent his woes. 20 

There as the solitary mourner raves, 

The ruddy morning rises o'er the waves : 

Soon as it rose, his furious steeds he join'd; 

The chariot flies, and Hector trails behind. 

And thrice, Patroclus ! round thy monument 25 

Was Hector dragg'd, then hurried to the tent. 

There sleep at last o'ercomes the hero's eyes ; 

While foul in dust th' unhonour'd carcase lies, 

But not deserted by the pitying skies. 

For Phoebus watch' d it with superior care, 30 

Preserved from gaping wounds, and tainting air ; 

And, ignominious as it swept the field, 

Spread o'er the sacred corse his golden shield. 

All heav'n was mov'd, and Hermes will'd to go 

By stealth to snatch him from th' insulting foe : 35 

But Neptune this, and Pallas this denies, 

And th' unrelenting empress of the skies : 

E'er since that day implacable to Troy, 

What time young Paris, simple shepherd boy, 

Won by destructive lust (reward obscene), 40 

Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen. 

But when the tenth celestial morning broke, 

To heav'n assembled, thus Apollo spoke : 



90 POPE'S ILIAD 

" Unpitying pow'rs ! how oft each holy fane 
Has Hector ting'd with blood of victims slain ! 45 

And can ye still his cold remains pursue ? 
Still grudge his body to the Trojans' view ? 
Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire, 
The last sad honours of a f un'ral fire ? 
Is then the dire Achilles all your care ? 50 

That iron heart, inflexibly severe ; 
A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide 
In strength of rage and impotence of pride, 
Who hastes to murder with a savage joy, 
Invades around, and breathes but to destroy. 55 

Shame is not of his soul ; nor understood 
The greatest evil and the greatest good. 
Still for one loss he rages unresign'd, 
Repugnant to the lot of all mankind ; 
To lose a friend, a brother, or a son, 60 

Heav'n dooms each mortal, and its will is done : 
Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care ; 
Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear. 
But this insatiate the commission giv'n 
By fate exceeds, and tempts the wrath of heav'n : 65 
Lo how his rage dishonest drags along 
Hector's dead earth, insensible of wrong ! 
Brave tho' he be, yet by no reason aw'd, 



BOOK XXIV 91 

He violates the laws of man and God ! " 

" If equal honours by the partial skies 70 

Are doomed both heroes/' Juno thus replies, 
" If Thetis' son must no distinction know, 
Then hear, ye gods ! the patron of the bow. 
But Hector only boasts a mortal claim, 
His birth deriving from a mortal dame : 75 

Achilles, of your own ethereal race, 
Springs from a goddess, by a man's embrace 
(A goddess by ourself to Peleus giv'n 
A man divine, and chosen friend of heav'n) : 
To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode 80 

Yourselves were present ; where this minstrel-god 
(Well-pleas'd to share the feast) amid the quire 
Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre." 

Then thus the Thund'rer checks th' imperial dame : 
" Let not thy wrath the court of heav'n inflame ; 85 
Their merits nor their honours are the same. 
But mine, and ev'ry god's peculiar grace 
Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race : 
Still on our shrines his grateful off'rings lay 
(The only honours men to gods can pay), 90 

Nor ever from our smoking altar ceas'd 
The pure libation, and the holy feast. 
Howe'er, by stealth to snatch the corse away, 



92 POPE'S ILIAD 

We will not : Thetis guards it night and day. 

But haste, and summon to our courts above 95 

The azure queen : let her persuasion move 

Her furious son from Priam to receive 

The proffer'd ransom, and the corse to leave." 

He added not : and Iris° from the skies, 
Swift as a whirlwind, on the message flies ; 100 

Meteorous the face of ocean sweeps, 
Refulgent gliding o'er the sable deeps. 
Between where Samos wide his forests spreads, 
And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads, 
Down plung'd the maid (the parted waves resound) ; 105 
She plung'd, and instant shot the dark profound. 
As, bearing death in the fallacious bait, 
From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight ; 
So pass'd the goddess thro' the closing wave, 
Where Thetis sorrowed in her secret cave : no 

There plac'd amidst her melancholy train 
(The blue-hair'd° sisters of the sacred main) 
Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come, 
And wept her godlike son's approaching doom. 

Then thus the goddess of the painted bow : 115 

" Arise, Thetis ! from thy seats below ; 
'Tis Jove that calls." " And why," the dame replies, 
" Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies ? 



BOOK XXIV 93 

Sad object as I am for heav'nly sight ! 

Ah ! may my sorrows ever shun the light ! 120 

Howe'er, be heav'n's almighty sire obey'd." 

She spake, and veil'cl her head in sable shade, 

Which, flowing long, her graceful person clad ; 

And forth she pac'd majestically sad. 

Then through the world of waters they repair 125 
(The way fair Iris led) to upper air. 
The deeps dividing, o'er the coast they rise, 
And touch with momentary flight the skies. 
There in the light'ning's blaze the sire they found 
And all the gods in shining synod round. 130 

Thetis approached with anguish in her face 
(Minerva rising gave the mourner place), 
Ev'n Juno sought her sorrows to console, 
And offer'd from her hand the nectar-bowl : 
She tasted, and resigned it : then began 135 

The sacred sire of gods and mortal man : 

" Thou com'st, fair Thetis, but with grief o'ercast, 
Maternal sorrows, long, ah long to last ! 
Suffice, we know and we partake thy cares : 
But yield to fate, and hear what Jove declares. 140 
Nine days are past, since all the court above 
In Hector's cause have mov'd the ear of Jove ; 
'Twas voted, Hermes from his godlike foe 



94 POPE'S ILIAD 

By stealth should bear him, but we will'd not so : 

We will, thy son himself the corse restore, 145 

And to his conquest add this glory more. 

Then hie thee to him, and our mandate bear ; 

Tell him he tempts the wrath of heav'n too far : 

Nor let him more (our anger if he dread) 

Vent his sad vengeance on the sacred dead : 150 

But yield to ransom and the father's pray'r. 

The mournful father Iris shall prepare, 

With gifts to sue, and offer to his hands 

Whatever his honour asks or heart demands." 

His word the silver-footed queen attends, 155 

And from Olympus' snowy tops descends. 
Arriv'd, she heard the voice of loud lament, 
And echoing groans that shook the lofty tent. 
His friends prepare the victim, and dispose 
Repast unheeded, while he vents his woes. 160 

The goddess seats her by her pensive son ; 
She press'd his hand, and tender thus begun : 

" How long, unhappy ! shall thy sorrows flow, 
And thy heart waste with life-consuming woe, 
Mindless of food, or love, whose pleasing reign 165 
Soothes weary life, and softens human pain ? 
Oh snatch the moments yet within thy pow'r ; 
Not long to live, indulge the am'rous hour ! 



BOOK XXIV 95 

Lo ! Jove himself (for Jove's command I bear) 

Forbids to tempt the wrath of heav'n too far. 170 

No longer then (his fury if thou dread) 

Detain the relics of great Hector dead ; 

Nor vent on senseless earth thy vengeance vain. 

But yield to ransom, and restore the slain.' 7 

To whom Achilles : " Be the ransom giv'n, 175 

And we submit, since such the will of heav'n." 

While thus they commun'd, from th' Olympian bow'rs 
Jove orders Iris to the Trojan tow'rs : 
" Haste, winged goddess, to the sacred town, 
And urge her monarch to redeem his son ; 180 

Alone the Ilian ramparts let him leave, 
And bear what stern Achilles may receive : 
Alone, for so we will : no Trojan near, 
Except, to place the dead with decent care, 
Some aged herald, who, with gentle hand, 185 

May the slow mules and fun'ral car command. 
Nor let him death, nor let him danger dread, 
Safe thro' the foe by our protection led : 
Him Hermes to Achilles shall convey, 
Guard of his life, and partner of his way. 190 

Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare 
His age, nor touch one venerable hair : 
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, 



96 POPE'S ILIAD 

Some sense of duty, some desire to save." 

Then down her bow the winged Iris drives, 195 

And swift at Priam's mournful court arrives : 
Where the sad sons beside their father's throne 
Sate bathed in tears, and answer'd groan with groan. 
And all amidst them lay the hoary sire 
(Sad scene of woe !), his face his wrapp'd attire 200 
Conceal'd from sight ; with frantic hands he spread 
A show'r of ashes o'er his neck and head. 
From room to room his pensive daughters roam : 
Whose shrieks and clamours fill the vaulted dome ; 
Mindful of those who, late their pride and joy, 205 

Lie pale and breathless round the fields of Troy ! 
Before the king Jove's messenger appears, 
And thus in whispers greets his trembling ears : 

" Fear not, father ! no ill news I bear ; 
From Jove I come, Jove makes thee still his care ; 210 
For Hector's sake these walls he bids thee leave, 
And bear what stern Achilles may receive : 
Alone, for so he wills : no Trojan near, 
Except, to place the dead with, decent care, 
Some aged herald, who, with gentle hand, 215 

May the slow mules and fun'ral car command. 
Nor shalt thou death, nor shalt thou danger dread, 
Safe thro' the foe by his protection led : 



BOOK XXIV 97 

Thee Hermes to Pelides shall convey, 

Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way. 220 

Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare 

Thy age, nor touch one venerable hair : 

Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, 

Some sense of duty, some desire to save." 

She spoke, and vanished. Priam bids prepare 225 
His gentle mules, and harness to the car ; 
There, for the gifts, a polish'd casket lay : 
His pious sons the king's commands obey. 
Then passed the monarch to his bridal-room, 
Where cedar-beams the lofty roofs perfume, 230 

And where the treasures of his empire lay; 
Then call'd his queen, and thus began to say : 

" Unhappy consort of a king distress'd ! 
Partake the troubles of thy husband's breast : 
I saw descend the messenger of Jove, 235 

Who bids me try Achilles' mind to move, 
Forsake these ramparts, and with gifts obtain 
The corse of Hector, at yon navy slain. 
Tell me thy thought : my heart impels to go 
Thro' hostile camps, and bears me to the foe." 24a 

The hoary monarch thus : her piercing cries 
Sad Hecuba renews, and then replies : 
"Ah ! whither wanders thy distemper'd mind; 



98 POPE'S ILIAD 

And. where the prudence now that aw'd mankind, 

Thro' Phrygia once and foreign regions known ? 245 

Now all confus'd, distracted, overthrown ! 

Singly to pass thro' hosts of foes ! to face 

(0 heart of steel !) the rnurd'rer of thy race ! 

To view that deathful eye, and wander o'er 

Those hands, yet red with Hector's noble gore ! 250 

Alas ! my lord ! he knows not how to spare, 

And what his mercy, thy slain sons declare; 

So brave ! so many fall'n ! To calm his rage 

Vain were thy dignity, and vain thy age. 

No — pent in this sad palace, let us give 255 

To grief the wretched days we have to live. 

Still, still for Hector let our sorrows flow, 

Born to his own and to his parents' woe ! 

Doom'd from the hour his luckless life begun, 

To dogs, to vultures, and to Peleus' son ! 26c 

Oh ! in his dearest blood might I allay 

My rage, and these barbarities repay ! 

For ah ! could Hector merit thus, whose breath 

Expir'd not meanly in unactive death ? 

He pour'd his latest blood in manly fight, 265 

And fell a hero in his country's right.'' 

" Seek not to stay me, nor my soul affright 
With words of omen, like a bird of night," 



BOOK XXIV 99 

Eeplied unmov'd the venerable man : 

" 'Tis heav'n commands me, and you urge in vain. 270 

Had any mortal voice th ? injunction laid, 

Nor augur, priest, nor seer had been obeyed. 

A present goddess brought the high command : 

I saw, I heard her, and the word shall stand. 

I go, ye gods ! obedient to your call : 275 

If in yon camp your pow'rs have doom'd my fall, 

Content : by the same hand let me expire ! 

Add to the slaughter'd son the wretched sire ! 

One cold embrace at least may be allow'd, 

And my last tears flow mingled with his blood ! " 280 

Forth from his open'd stores, this said, he drew 
Twelve costly carpets of refulgent hue ; 
As many vests, as many mantles told, 
And twelve fair veils, and garments stiff with gold; 
Two tripods next, and twice two chargers shine, 285 
With ten pure talents from the richest mine ; 
And last a large, well-labour'd bowl had place 
(The pledge of treaties once with friendly Thrace) : 
Seem'd all too mean the stores he could employ, 
For one last look to buy him back to Troy ! 290 

Lo ! the sad father, frantic with his pain, 
Around him furious drives his menial train : 
In vain each slave with duteous care attends, 



100 POPE'S ILIAD 

Each office hurts him, and each face offends. 

" What make ye here, officious crowds ! " he cries ; 295 

" Hence, nor obtrude your anguish on my eyes. 

Have ye no griefs at home, to fix ye there ? 

Am I the only object of despair? 

Am I become my people's common show, 

Set up by Jove your spectacle of woe ? 300 

No, you must feel him too : yourselves must fall ; 

The same stern god to ruin gives you all : 

Nor is great Hector lost by me alone ; 

Your sole defence, your guardian pow'r, is gone ! 

I see your blood the fields of Phrygia drown ; 305 

I see the ruins of your smoking town ! 

Oh send me, gods, ere that sad day shall come, 

A willing ghost to Pluto's dreary dome ! " 

He said, and feebly drives his friends away : 
The sorrowing friends his frantic rage obey. 310 

Next on his sons his erring fury falls, 
Polites, Paris, Agathon, he calls; 
His threats DeTphobus and Dius hear, 
Hippothous, Pammon, Helenus the seer, 
And gen'rous Antiphon ; for yet these nine 315 

Survived, sad relics of his numerous line. 

" Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire ! 
Why did not all in Hector's cause expire ? 



BOOK XXIV 101 

Wretch that I am ! my bravest offspring slain, 
You, the disgrace of Priam's house, remain ! 320 

Mestor the brave, renowned in ranks of war, 
With Troilus, dreadful on his rushing car, 
And last great Hector, more than man divine, 
. For sure he seem'd not of terrestrial line ! 
All those relentless Mars untimely, slew, 325 

And left me these, a soft and servile crew, 
Whose days the feast and wanton dance employ, 
Gluttons and flatterers, the contempt of Troy ! 
Why teach ye not my rapid wheels to run, 
And speed my journey to redeem my son ? " 330 

The sons their father's wretched age revere, 
Forgive his anger, and produce the car. 
High on the seat the cabinet they bind : 
The new-made car with solid beauty shin'd : 
Box was the yoke, emboss'd with costly pains, 335 

And hung with ringlets to receive the reins : 
Nine cubits long, the traces swept the ground ; 
These to the chariot's polish'd pole they bound, 
Then fix'd a ring the running reins to guide, 
And, close beneath, the gather'd ends were tied. 340 
Next with the gifts (the price of Hector slain) 
The sad attendants load the groaning wain : 
Last to the yoke the well-match'd mules they bring 



102 POPE'S ILIAD 

(The gift of Mysia to the Trojan king). 
But the fair horses, long his darling care, 345 

Himself received, and harness'd to his car : 
Griev'd as he was, he not this task denied ; 
The hoary herald help'd him at his side. 
While careful these the gentle coursers join'd, 
Sad Hecuba approach'd with anxious mind ; 350 

A golden bowl, that foam'd with fragrant wine 
(Libation destin'd to the pow'r divine), 
Held in her right, before the steeds she stands, 
And thus consigns it to the monarch's hands : 354 

" Take this, and pour to Jove ; that, safe from harms, 
His grace restore thee to our roof and arms. 
Since, victor of thy fears, and slighting mine, 
Heav'n or thy soul inspire this bold design, 
Pray to that god° who, high on Ida's brow, 
Surveys thy desolated realms below, 360 

His winged messenger to send from high, 
And lead the way with heav'nly augury : 
Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 
Tow'r on the right of yon ethereal space. 
That sign beheld, and strengthened from above, 365 
Boldly pursue the journey mark'd by Jove ; 
But if the god his augury denies, 
Suppress thy impulse, nor reject advice." 



BOOK XXIV 103 

" ? Tis just," said Priam, "to the sire above 
To raise our hands ; for who so good as Jove ? " 370 

He spoke, and bade th' attendant handmaid bring 
The purest water of the living spring 
(Her ready hands the ewer and bason held) ; 
Then took the golden cup his queen had fill'd ; 
On the mid° pavement pours the rosy wine, 375 

Uplifts his eyes, and calls the pow'r divine : 

" first and greatest ! heavVs imperial lord ! 
On lofty Ida's holy hill ador'd ! 
To stern Achilles now direct my ways, 
And teach him mercy when a father prays. 380 

If such thy will, dispatchrfrom yonder sky 
Thy sacred bird, celestial augury ! 
Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 
Tow'r on the right of yon ethereal space : 
So shall thy suppliant, strengthened from above, 385 
Fearless pursue the journey mark'd by Jove." 

Jove heard his pray'r, and from the throne on high 
Dispatch'd his bird, celestial augury ! 
The swift-wing'd chaser of the feather'd game, 
And known to gods by Percnos' lofty name. 390 

Wide as appears some palace-gate display'd, 
So broad his pinions stretch'd their ample shade, 
As, stooping dexter with resounding wings, 



104 POPE'S ILIAD 

Th' imperial bird descends in airy rings. 

A dawn of joy in ev'ry face appears ; 395 

The mourning matron dries her tim'rous tears. 

Swift on his car th ? impatient monarch sprung; 

The brazen portal in his passage rung. 

The mules preceding draw the loaded wain, 

Charg'd with the gifts ; Idaeus holds the rein : 400 

The king himself his gentle steeds controls, 

And thro' surrounding friends the chariot rolls : 

On his slow wheels the following people wait, 

Mourn at each step, and give him up to fate ; 

With hands uplifted, eye him as he pass'd, 405 

And gaze upon him as they gaz'd their last. 

Now forward fares the father on his way, 
Thro' the lone fields, and back to Ilion they. 
Great Jove beheld him as he cross'd the plain, 
And felt the woes of miserable man. 410 

Then thus to Hermes : " Thou, whose constant cares 
Still succour mortals, and attend their pray'rs ! 
Behold an object to thy charge consigned ; 
If ever pity touch' d thee for mankind, 
Go, guard the sire ; th ? observing foe prevent, 415 

And safe conduct him to Achilles' tent." 

The god obeys, his golden pinions binds, 
And mounts incumbent on the wings of winds, 



BOOK XXIV 105 

That high thro' fields of air his flight sustain, 

O'er the wide earth, and o'er the boundless main : 420 

Then grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly, 

Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye : 

Thus arm'd, swift Hermes steers his airy way, 

And stoops on Hellespont's resounding sea. 

A beauteous youth, majestic and divine, 425 

He seem'd ; fair offspring of some princely line ! 

Now twilight veil'd the glaring face of day, 

And clad the dusky fields in sober grey ; 

What time the herald and the hoary king, 

Their chariot stopping at the silver spring, 430 

That circling Ilus' ancient marble flows, 

Allow'd their mules and steeds a short repose. 

Thro' the dim shade the herald first espies 

A man's approach, and thus to Priam cries : 

" I mark some foe's advance : king ! beware ; 435 

This hard adventure claims thy utmost care ; 

For much I fear destruction hovers nigh : 

Our state asks counsel. Is it best to fly ? 

Or, old and helpless, at his feet to fall 

(Two wretched suppliants), and for mercy call ? " 440 

Th' afflicted monarch shiver'd with despair ; 
Pale grew his face, and upright stood his hair; 
Sunk was his heart ; his colour went and came j 



106 POPE'S ILIAD 

A sudden trembling shook his aged frame : 

When Hermes, greeting, touch'd his royal hand, 445 

And, gentle, thus accosts with kind demand : 

" Say whither, father ! when each mortal sight 
Is seal'd. in sleep, thou wander'st thro' the night. 
Why roam thy mules and steeds the plains along, 
Thro' Grecian foes, so num'rous and so strong ? 450 
What couldst thou hope, should these thy treasures 

view, 
These, who with endless hate thy race pursue ? 
For what defence, alas ! couldst thou provide, 
Thyself not young, a weak old man thy guide ? 
Yet suffer not thy soul to sink with dread; 455 

From me no harm shall touch thy rev'rend head : 
From Greece I'll guard thee too ; for in those lines 
The living image of my father shines." 

« Thy words, that speak benevolence of mind, 
Are true, my son ! " the godlike sire rejoin'd : 460 

" Great are my hazards ; but the gods survey 
My steps, and send thee guardian of my way. 
Hail ! and be blest ! for scarce of mortal kind 
Appear thy form, thy feature, and thy mind." 

" Nor true are all thy words, nor erring wide," 465 
The sacred messenger of heav'n replied : 
" But say, convey'st thou thro' the lonely plains 



BOOK XXIV 107 

What yet most precious of thy store remains, 
To lodge in safety with some friendly hand, 
Prepar'd perchance to leave thy native land ? 470 

Or fly'st thou now ? What hopes can Troy retain, 
Thy matchless son, her guard and glory, slain ? " 

The king, alarm'd : " Say what, and whence thou art, 
Who search the sorrows of a parent's heart, 
And know so well how godlike Hector died." 475 

Thus Priam spoke, and Hermes thus replied : 

" You tempt me, father, and with pity touch : 
On this sad subject you enquire too much. 
Oft have these eyes the godlike Hector vieAv'd 
In glorious fight, with Grecian blood embru'd : 480 

I saw him when, like Jove, his flames he toss'd 
On thousand ships, and withered half a host : 
I saw, but help'd not ; stern Achilles' ire 
Forbade assistance, and enjoy 'd the fire. 
For him I serve, of Myrmidonian race ; 485 

One ship convey'd us from our native place ; 
Polyctor is my sire, an honoured name, 
Old, like thyself, and not unknown to fame ; 
Of sev'n his sons, by whom the lot was cast 
To serve our prince, it fell on me the last. 490 

To watch this quarter my adventure falls ; 
For with the morn the Greeks attack your walls ; 



108 POPE'S ILIAD 

Sleepless they sit, impatient to engage. 

And scarce their rulers check their martial rage." 

" If then thou art of stern Pelides' train " 495 

(The mournful monarch thus rejoin'd again), 
" Ah, tell me truly, where, oh ! where are laid 
My son's dear relics ? what befalls him dead ? 
Have dogs dismembered on the naked plains, 
Or yet unmangled rest his cold remains ? " 500 

" favoured of the skies ! " thus answer'd then 
The pow'r that mediates between gods and men, 
" Nor dogs nor vultures have thy Hector rent, 
But whole he lies, neglected in the tent : 
This the twelfth ev'ning since he rested there, 505 

Untouched by worms, untainted by the air. 
Still as Aurora's ruddy beam is spread, 
Round his friend's tomb Achilles drags the dead ; 
Yet undisfigur'd, or in limb or face, 
All fresh he lies, with ev'ry living grace, 510 

Majestical in death! No stains are found 
O'er all the corse, and clos'd is ev'ry wound ; 
Tho' many a wound they gave. Some heav'nly care, 
Some hand divine, preserves him ever fair : 
Or all the host of heav'n, to whom he led 515 

A life so grateful, still regard him dead." 

Thus spoke to Priam the celestial guide, 



BOOK XXIV 109 

And joyful thus the royal sire replied : 

" Bless'd is the man who pays the gods above 

The constant tribute of respect and love ! 520 

Those who inhabit the Olympian bow'r 

My son forgot not, in exalted pow'r ; 

And heav'n, that ev'ry virtue bears in mind, 

Ev'n to the ashes of the just is kind. 

But thou, gen'rous youth ! this goblet take, 525 

A pledge of gratitude for Hector's sake ; 

And while the fav'ring gods our steps survey, 

Safe to Pelides' tent conduct my way." 

To whom the latent god : " king, forbear 
To tempt my youth, for apt is youth to err : 530 

But can I, absent from my prince's sight, 
Take gifts in secret, that must shun the light ? 
What from our master's int'rest thus we draw 
Is but a licens'd theft that 'scapes the law. 
Respecting him, my soul abjures th' offence ; 535 

And, as the crime, I dread the consequence. 
Thee, far as Argos, pleas'd I could convey ; 
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way : 
On thee attend, thy safety to maintain, 
O'er pathless forests, or the roaring main/' 540 

He said, then took the chariot at a bound, 
And snatch'd the reins, and whirl'd the lash around : 



110 POPE'S ILIAD 

Before th' inspiring god that urg'd them on 

The coursers fly, with spirit not their own. 

And now they reach'd. the naval walls, and found 545 

The guards repasting, while the bowls go round : 

On these the virtue of his wand he tries, 

And pours deep slumber on their watchful eyes : 

Then heav'd the massy gates, removed the bars, 

And o'er the trenches led the rolling cars. 550 

Unseen, thro' all the hostile camp they went, 

And now approach'd Pelides' lofty tent.° 

Of fir the roof was raised, and cover'd o'er 

With reeds collected from the marshy shore ; 

And, fenc'd with palisades, a hall of state 555 

(The work of soldiers), where the hero sate. 

Large was the door, whose well-compacted strength 

A solid pine-tree barr'd of wond'rous length ; 

Scarce three strong Greeks could lift its mighty weight, 

But great Achilles singly clos'd the gate. 560 

This Hermes (such the pow'r of gods) set wide ; 

Then swift alighted the celestial guide, 

And thus, reveal'd : " Hear, prince ! and understand 

Thou ow'st thy guidance to no mortal hand ; 

Hermes I am, descended from above, 565 

The king of arts, the messenger of Jove. 

Farewell : to shun Achilles' sight I fly ; 



BOOK XXIV 111 

Uncommon are such favours of the sky, 

Nor stand confess'd to frail mortality. 

Now fearless enter, and prefer thy pray'rs ; 570 

Adjure him by his father's silver hairs, 

His son,° his mother ! urge him to bestow 

Whatever pity that stern heart can know." 

Thus having said, he vanished from his eyes, 
And in a moment shot into the skies: 575 

The king, confirmed from heav'n, alighted there, 
And left his aged herald on the car. 
With solemn pace thro' various rooms he went, 
And found Achilles in his inner tent: 
There sate the hero ; Alcimus the brave, 580 

And great Automedon, attendance gave; 
These serv'd his person at the royal feast; 
Around, at awful distance, stood the rest. 

Unseen by these, the king his entry made ; 
And, prostrate now before Achilles laid, 585 

Sudden (a venerable sight!) appears; 
Embrac'd his knees, and bath'd his hands in tears ; 
Those direful hands his kisses press'd, embru'd 
Ev'n with the best, the dearest of his blood ! 

As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime, 590 
Pursu'd for murder flies his native clime) 
Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amaz'd! 



112 POPE'S ILIAD 

All gaze, all wonder: thus Achilles gaz'd: 

Thus stood th' attendants stupid with surprise : 

All mute, yet seem'd to question with their eyes : 595 

Each look'd on other, none the silence broke, 

Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke: 

" Ah° think, thou favoured of the pow'rs divine ! 
Think of thy father's age, and pity mine ! 
In me, that father's rev'rend image trace, 600 

Those silver hairs, that venerable face ; 
His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see! 
In all my equal, but in misery ! 
Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate 
Expels him helpless from his peaceful state; 605 

Think, from some powerful foe thou see'st him fly, 
And beg protection with a feeble cry. 
Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise ; 
He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes; 
And, hearing, still may hope a better day 610 

May send him thee, to chase that foe away. 
No comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain, 
The best, the bravest, of my sons are slain ! 
Yet what a race ! ere Greece to Ilion came, 
The pledge of many a lov'd and loving dame! 615 

Nineteen one mother bore — dead, all are dead ! 
How oft, alas ! has wretched Priam bled ! 



BOOK XXIV 113 

Still one was lef t, their loss to recompense ; 

His father's hope, his country's last defence. 

Him too thy rage has slain ! beneath thy steel, 620 

Unhappy, in his country's cause, he fell! 

For him thro' hostile camps I bent my way, 

For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay ; 

Large gifts, proportion' d to thy wrath, I bear : 

Oh, hear the wretched, and the gods revere ! 625 

Think of thy father, and this face behold ! 

See him in me, as helpless and as old; 

Tho' not so wretched: there he yields to me, 

The first of men in sov'reign misery: 

Thus forc'd to kneel, thus grov'ling to embrace 630 

The scourge and ruin of my realm and race : 

Suppliant my children's murd'rer to implore, 

And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore ! " 

These words soft pity in the chief inspire, 
Touch'd with the dear rememb'rance of his sire. 635 
Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay) 
The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away. . 
Now each by turns indulg'd the gush of woe; 
And now the mingled tides together flow : 
This low on earth, that gently bending o'er, 640 

A father one, and one a son deplore : 
But great Achilles different passions rend, 



114 POPE'S ILIAD 

And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend. 
Th' infectious softness thro' the heroes ran ; 
One universal solemn show'r began; 645 

They bore as heroes, but they felt as man. 

Satiate at length with unavailing woes, 
Prom the high throne divine Achilles rose ; 
The rev'rend monarch by the hand he rais'd; 
On his white beard and form majestic gaz'd, 650 

Not unrelenting : then serene began 
With words to soothe the miserable man : 

" Alas ! what weight of anguish hast thou known, 
Unhappy prince ! thus guardless and alone 
To pass thro' foes, and thus undaunted face 655 

The man whose fury has destroyed thy race! 
Heav'n sure has arm'd thee with a heart of steel, 
A strength proportioned to the woes you feel. 
Rise then: let reason mitigate our care : 
To mourn avails not : man is born to bear. 660 

Such is, alas ! the gods' severe decree ; 
They, only they are blest, and only free. 
Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, 
The source of evil one, and one of good ; 
From thence the cup of mortal man he fills, 665 

Blessings to these, to those distributes ills; 
To most he mingles both : the wretch decreed 



BOOK XXIV 115 

To taste the bad unmix' d, is curs'd indeed : 

Pursu'd by wrongs, by meagre famine driv'n, 

He wanders, outcast both of earth and heav'n. 670 

The happiest taste not happiness sincere, 

But find the cordial draught is dash'd with care. 

Who more than Peleus shone in wealth and pow'r ? 

What stars concurring bless'd his natal hour ! 

A realm, a goddess, to his wishes giv'n, 675 

Grac'd by the gods with all the gifts of heav'n ! 

One evil, yet, overtakes his latest day ; 

ISTo race succeeding to imperial sway : 

An only son ! and he (alas !) ordain'd 

To fall untimely in a foreign land ! 680 

See him, in Troy, the pious care decline 

Of his weak age, to live the curse of thine ! 

Thou too, old man, hast happier days beheld; 

In riches once, in children once excell'd; 

Extended Phrygia own'd thy ample reign, 685 

And all fair Lesbos' blissful seats contain, 

And all wide Hellespont's unmeasur'd main. 

But since the god his hand has pleas'd to turn, 

And fill thy measure from his bitter urn, 

What sees the sun but hapless heroes' falls ? 690 

War and the blood of men surround thy walls ! 

What must be, must be. Bear thy lot, nor shed 



116 POPE'S ILIAD 

These unavailing sorrows o'er the dead ; 

Thou canst not call him from the Stygian shore, 

But thou, alas ! mayst live to suffer more ! " 695 

To whom the king : " favoured of the skies ! 
Here let me grow to earth ! since Hector lies 
On the bare beach, deprived of obsequies. 
Oh, give me Hector ! to my eyes restore 
His corse, and take the gifts : I ask no more ! 700 

Thou, as thou mayst, these boundless stores enjoy; 
Safe mayst thou sail, and turn thy wrath from Troy ; 
So shall thy pity and forbearance give 
A weak old man to see the light and live ! " 

" Move me no more/' Achilles thus replies, 705 

While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes, 
" Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend. 
To yield thy Hector I myself intend : 
Eor know, from Jove my goddess-mother came 
(Old Ocean's daughter, silver-footed dame) ; 710 

Nor com'st thou but by heav'n; nor com'sfc alone; 
Some god impels with courage not thy own : 
No human hand the weighty gates unbarr'd, 
Nor could the boldest of our youth have dar'd 
To pass our out-works, or elude the guard. 715 

Cease; lest, neglectful of high Jove's command, 
I show thee, king ! thou tread'st on hostile land ; 



BOOK XXIV 117 

Eelease my knees, thy suppliant arts give o'er, 
And shake the purpose of my soul no more." 

The sire obeyed him, trembling and o'eraw'd. 720 
Achilles, like a lion, rush'd abroad ; 
Automedon and Alcimus attend, 
Whom most he honoured since he lost his friend ; 
These to unyoke the mules and horses went, 
And led the hoary herald to the tent : 725 

Next, heap'd on high, the num'rous presents bear 
(Great Hector's ransom) from the polish'd car. 
Two splendid mantles, and a carpet spread, 
They leave, to cover and in wrap the dead: 
Then call the handmaids, with assistant toil 730 

To wash the body, and anoint with oil, 
Apart from Priam ; lest th' unhappy sire, 
Provok'd to passion, once more rouse to ire 
The stern Pelides ; and nor sacred age 
Nor Jove's command should check the rising rage. 735 
This done, the garments o'er the corse they spread; 
Achilles lifts it to the fun'ral bed: 
Then, while the body on the car they laid, 
He groans, and calls on lov'd Patroclus' shade : 

" If, in that gloom which never light must know, 740 
The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below ; 
friend ! forgive me, that I thus fulfil 



118 POPE'S ILIAD 

(Restoring Hector) heaven's unquestioned will. 

The gifts the father gave, be ever thine, 

To grace thy manes, and adorn thy shrine." 745 

He said, and, entering, took his seat of state, 
Where full before him rev' rend Priam sate : 
To whom, composed, the godlike chief begun : 
" Lo ! to thy pray'r restored, thy breathless son ; 
Extended on the fun'ral couch he lies ; 750 

And, soon as morning paints the eastern skies, 
The sight is granted to thy longing eyes. 
But now the peaceful hours of sacred night 
Demand refection, and to rest invite : 
Nor thou, father ! thus consumed with woe, 755 

The common cares that nourish life forego. 
Not thus did Niobe,° of form divine, 
A parent once, whose sorrows equalPcl thine : 
Six youthful sons, as many blooming maids, 
In one sad day beheld the Stygian shades : 760 

Those by Apollo's silver bow were slain, 
These Cynthia's arrows stretch'd upon the plain. 
So was her pride chastis'd by wrath divine, 
Who match'd her own with bright Latona's line ; 
But two the goddess, twelve the queen enjoy'd; 765 
Those boasted twelve th' avenging two destroy'd. 
Steep'd in their blood, and in the dust outspread, 



BOOK XXIV 119 

Nine clays neglected lay expos'd the dead ; 

None by to weep them, to inhume them none 

(For Jove had turn'd the nation all to stone) ; 770 

The gods themselves, at length, relenting, gave 

Th' unhappy race the honours of a grave. 

Herself ° a rock (for such was heavVs high will) 

Thro' deserts wild now pours a weeping rill ; 

Where round the bed whence Acheloiis springs, 775 

The wat'ry fairies dance in mazy rings : 

There, high on Sipylus's shady brow, 

She stands, her own sad monument of woe ; 

The rock for ever lasts, the tears for ever flow. 

Such griefs, king ! have other parents known : 780 

Remember theirs, and mitigate thy own. 

The care of heav'n thy Hector has appeared ; 

Nor shall he lie unwept and uninterr'd; 

Soon may thy aged cheeks in tears be drown' d, 

And all the eyes of Ilion stream around." 785 

He said, and, rising, chose the victim ewe 
With silver fleece, which his attendants slew. 
The limbs they sever from the reeking hide, 
With skill prepare them, and in parts divide : 
Each on the coals the separate morsels lays, 790 

And hasty snatches from the rising blaze. 
With bread the glitt'ring canisters they load, 



120 POPE'S ILIAD 

Which round the board Automedon bestow'd : 

The chief himself to each his portion plac'd, 

And each indulging shar'd in sweet repast. 795 

When now the rage of hunger was repress'd, 

The wond'ring hero eyes his royal guest ; 

No less the royal guest the hero eyes, 

His godlike aspect and majestic size ; 

Here youthful grace and noble fire engage, 800 

And there the mild benevolence of age. 

Thus gazing long, the silence neither broke 

(A solemn scene !) ; at length the father spoke : 

" Permit me now, belov'd of Jove, to steep 
My careful temples in the dew of sleep : 805 

, For since the day that numbered with the dead 
My hapless son, the dust has been my bed; 
Soft sleep a stranger to my weeping eyes, 
My only food, my sorrows and my sighs ! 
Till now, encouraged by the grace you give, 810 

I share thy banquet, and consent to live." 

With that, Achilles bade prepare the bed, 
With purple soft and shaggy carpets spread ; 
Forth, by the flaming lights, they bend their way, 
And place the couches, and the coverings lay. 815 

Then he : " Now, father, sleep, but sleep not here, 
Consult thy safety, and forgive my fear, 



BOOK XXIV 121 

Lest any Argive (at this hour awake, 

To ask our counsel or our orders take), 

Approaching sudden to our open tent, 820 

Perchance behold thee, and our grace prevent. 

Should such report thy honoured person here, 

The king of men the ransom might defer. 

But say with speed, if aught of thy desire 

Remains unasked, what time the rites require 825 

T ? inter thy Hector. For, so long we stay 

Our slaughtering arm, and bid the hosts obey." 

" If then thy will permit," the monarch said, 
" To finish all due honours to the dead, 
This, of thy grace, accord : to thee are known 830 

The fears of Ilion, clos'd within her town ; 
And at what distance from our walls aspire 
The hills of Ide, and forests for the fire. 
Nine days to vent our sorrows I request, 
The tenth shall see the f un'ral and the feast ; 835 

The next, to raise his monument be giv'n ; 
The twelfth we war, if war be doom'd by lieav'n ! " 

" This thy request," replied the chief, " enjoy : 
Till then our arms suspend the fall of Troy." 
Then gave his hand at parting, to prevent 840 

The old man's fears, and turn'd within the tent ; 
Where fair Briseis, bright in blooming charms, 



122 POPE'S ILIAD 

Expects her hero with desiring arms. 

But in the porch the king and herald rest, 

Sad dreams of care yet wand'ring in their breast. 845 

Now gods and men the gifts of sleep partake ; 
Industrious Hermes only was awake, 
The king's return revolving in his mind, 
To pass the ramparts and the watch to blind. 
The pow'r descending hover'd o'er his head, 850 

And, " Sleep'st thou, father ? " (thus the vision said) 
" Now dost thou sleep, when Hector is restored ? 
Nor fear the Grecian foes or Grecian lord ? 
Thy presence here should stern Atrides see, 
Thy still-surviving sons may sue for thee ; 855 

May offer all thy treasures yet contain, 
To spare thy age ; and offer all in vain." 

Wak'd with the word, the trembling sire arose, 
And rais'd his friend : the god before him goes : 
He joins the mules, directs them with his hand, 860 
And moves in silence thro' the hostile land. 
When now to Xanthus' yellow stream they drove 
(Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove), 
The winged deity forsook their view, 
And in a moment to Olympus flew. 865 

Now shed Aurora round her saffron ray, 
Sprung thro' the gates of light, and gave the day. 



BOOK XXIV 123 

Charged with their mournful load, to Ilion go 

The sage and king, majestically slow. 

Cassandra first beholds, from Ilion's spire, 870 

The sad procession of her hoary sire ; 

Then, as the pensive pomp advanced more near 

(Her breathless brother stretch* d upon the bier), 

A show'r of tears overflows her beauteous eyes, 

Alarming thus all Ilion with her cries : 875 

" Turn here your steps, and here your eyes employ, 
Ye wretched daughters and ye sons of Troy ! 
If e'er ye rush'd in crowds, with vast delight, 
To hail your hero glorious from the fight ; 
Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow ! 880 
Your common triumph and your common woe." 

In thronging crowds they issue to the plains, 
Nor mail nor woman in the walls remains : 
In ev'ry face the self-same grief is shown, 
And Troy sends forth one universal groan. 885 

At Scsea's gates, they meet the mourning wain, 
Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain. 
The wife and mother, frantic with despair, 
Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scatter'd hair ; 
Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay ; 890 

And there had sigh'd and sorrowed out the day ; 
But godlike Priam from the chariot rose ; 



124 POPE'S ILIAD 

"Forbear," lie cried, "this violence of woes; 

First to the palace let the car proceed, 

Then pour your boundless sorrows o'er the dead." 895 

The waves of people at his word divide ; 
Slow rolls the chariot thro' the following tide : 
Ev'n to the palace the sad pomp they wait : 
They weep, and place him on the bed of state. 
A melancholy choir attend around, 900 

With plaintive sighs and music's solemn sound : 
Alternately they sing, alternate flow 
Th' obedient tears, melodious in their woe ; 
While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, 
And nature speaks at ev'ry pause of art. 905 

First to the corse the weeping consort flew ; 
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw : 
And, " my Hector ! my lord ! " she cries, 
" Snatch' d in thy bloom from these desiring eyes ! 
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone ! 910 

And I abandon' d, desolate, alone ! 
An only son, once comfort of our pains, 
Sad product now of hapless love, remains ! 
Never to manly age that son shall rise, 
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes ; 915 

For Ilion now (her great defender slain) 
Shall sink, a smoking ruin, on the plain. 



BOOK XXIV 125 

Who now protects her wives with guardian care ? 

Who saves her infants from the rage of war ? 

Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er 920 

(Those wives must wait 'em) to a foreign shore ! 

Thou too, my son ! to barb'rous climes shalt go, 

The sacl companion of thy mother's woe ; 

Driv'n hence a slave before the victor's sword, 

Condemn'd to toil for some inhuman lord : 925 

Or else some Greek, whose father press'd the plain, 

Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain, 

In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy, 

And hurl thee headlong from the tow'rs of Troy. 

For thy stern father never spar'd a foe : 930 

Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe ! 

Thence many evils his sad parents bore, 

His parents many, but his consort more. 

Why° gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand ? 

And why receiv'd not I thy last command ? 935 

Some word thou wouldst have spoke, which, sadly dear, 

My soul might keep, or utter with a tear ; 

Which never, never could be lost in air, 

Fix'd in my heart, and oft repeated there ! " 

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan : 940 
Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan. 

The mournful mother next sustains her part : 



126 POPE'S ILIAD 

u thou, the best, the clearest of my heart ! 

Of all my race thou most by heav'n approved, 
And by th' immortals ev'n in death belov'd ! 
While all my other sons in barb'rous bands 
Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands, 
This felt no chains, but went, a glorious ghost, 
"Free and a hero, to the Stygian coast. 
Sentenced, 'tis true, by his inhuman doom, 950 

Thy noble corse was dragged around the tomb 
(The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain) ; 
Ungen'rous insult, impotent and vain ! 
Yet glow'st thou fresh with ev'ry living grace, 
No mark of pain, or violence of face; 955 

Eosy and fair ! as Phoebus' silver bow 
Dismissed thee gently to the shades below ! " 

Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears. 
Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears : 
Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes 960 

Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries : 
" Ah,° dearest friend ! in whom the gods had joined 
The mildest manners with the bravest mind ! 
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er 
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore 965 

(Oh had I perish'd, ere that form divine 
Seduc'd this soft, this easy heart of mine !) ; 




BOOK XXIV 127 

Yet was it ne'er my fate from thee to find 

A deed ungentle, or a word unkind : 

When others curs'd the auth'ress of their woe, 970 

Thy pity cheek'd my sorrows in their flow : 

If some proud brother ey'd me with disdain, 

Or scornful sister with her sweeping train, 

Thy gentle accents soften'd all my pain. 

For thee I mourn ; and mourn myself in thee, 975 

The wretched source of all this misery ! 

The fate I caus'd, for ever I bemoan ; 

Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone ! 

Thro' Troy's wide streets abandon 'd shall I roam, 

In Troy deserted, as abhorr'd at home ! " 980 

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye : 
Distressful beauty melts each stander-by ; 
On all around th' infectious sorrow grows ; 
But Priam cheek'd the torrent as it rose : 
" Perform, ye Trojans ! what the rites require, 985 

And fell the forests for a fun'ral pyre ! 
Twelve days nor foes nor secret ambush dread ; 
Achilles grants these honours to the dead." 

He spoke ; and at his word the Trojan train 
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain, 990 

Pour thro' the gates, and, fell'd from Ida's crown, 
Poll back the gather'd forests to the town. 



128 POPE'S ILIAD 

These toils continue nine succeeding days, 

And high in air a sylvan structure raise. 

But when the tenth fair morn began to shine, 995 

Forth to the pile was borne the man divine, 

And plac'd aloft : while all, with streaming eyes, 

Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise. 

Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn, 
With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn, 1000 

Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre, 
And quench with wine the yet-remaining fire. 
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place 
(With tears collected) in a golden vase; 
The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd, 1005 

Of softest texture and inwrought with gold. 
Last, o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread, 
And rais'd the tomb, memorial of the dead 
(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done, 
Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun). 1010 

All Troy then moves to Priam's court again, 
A solemn, silent, melancholy train : 
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest, 
And sadly shar'd the last sepulchral feast. 

Such honours Uion to her hero paid, 1015 

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. 



NOTES 



BOOK I 

Iliad. Poem about Ilion, or Troy. A form of title often 
given to an epic poem. Cf. JEneid, Bolliad, Columbiad, Dun- 
ciad, etc. 

1. Achilles' wrath. The anger of Achilles is proposed by 
the poet himself as the subject of his poem. Mtjvlp, meaning 
wrath, is the first word of the poem. The poet begins with the 
wrath of Achilles, because it gave a decided impulse to the 
events of the war and hastened the catastrophe. It brought 
upon the Greeks a train of disasters, ending with the death of 
Patroclus, the beloved friend of Achilles, which drew him forth 
from his retirement, to exact a bloody vengeance from Hector 
and the Trojans. The purpose of Jove was to bring about the 
destruction of Troy by the fall of Hector, etc. And the will of 
Jove was accomplishing from the time when Atrides, King of 
Men, and the divine Achilles parted, having quarrelled. (Felton. ) 

2. goddess : the muse. The poet, inspired by the gods, in- 
vokes the aid of the Epic Muse. The "nine muses" are not 
mentioned by Homer, although the muses appear in the plural 
in several places. According to Hesiod they are the daughters 

k 129 



130 NOTES 

of Zeus and Memory, "a transparent allegory of the inspiration 
needed by a poet who does not write, but has to compose and 
recite his song by heart." (Leaf.) 

3. Pluto. The god of the underworld, the abode of the dead. 

4. reign. The territory of a sovereign, realm. 

5. unburied. The souls of the unburied dead were supposed 
to wander upon the banks of the Styx. 

"Behold a ghastly band, 
Each a torch in his hand ! 
Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle 

were slain, 
And unburied remain 
Inglorious on the plain." 

— Alexander's Feast. 

7. Atrides. Agamemnon, son of Atreus ; so Achilles is 
called Pelides, son of Peleus ; and Diotnedes is called Tydides, 
son of Tydeus. 

8. Observe the change of metre in the introduction of this 
Alexandrine. 

11. Latona's son. Apollo, the tutelary deity of the Dorians. 
The Dorians had not at this time become the predominant race 
in Greece. Throughout the Iliad Apollo acts splendidly and 
effectively, but always against the Greeks, from mere partiality 
to Hector. 

13. king of men. Agamemnon. 

13. rev'rend priest : Chryses. 

20. the sceptre and the laurel crown. The golden sceptre 
indicated that Chryses was the priest of Apollo. The laurel 



NOTES 131 

crown is Pope's substitution for " the woollen fillet" of Homer, 
which, wound round a staff, was the mark of the suppliant. " It 
is here perhaps the same fillet which the priest usually wears on 
his head in sign of his divine office. Or possibly it may even 
be a fillet from the head of the god himself, and thus have still 
higher sanctity." (Leaf.) 

22. brother-kings. Agamemnon and Menelaus. 

23-30. Notice the art of this speech. Chryses comprehen- 
sively addresses the army of the Greeks as made up of troops 
partly from the kingdoms and partly from democracies. As 
priest of Apollo he prays that they may obtain the blessings 
they desire — the conquest of Troy and a safe return. He then 
names his petition, offers ransom, and bids them fear the wrath 
of Apollo if they refuse his prayer. "Thus he endeavors to 
work by the art of a general application, by religion, by interest, 
and the insinuation of danger." 

28. Chryseis. Daughter of Chryses. 

30. Phoebus. The bright. Homer usually speaks of Phoebus 
Apollo, but the names are also sometimes separated. 

32. the fair. A conventional poetic expression common in 
the eighteenth century. 

45. Argos. Not the town, but the Peloponnesus. See YI., 189. 

50. Chryses does not reply to the insults of Agamemnon, 
but walks silently and sadly by the sea. Pope says: "The 
melancholy flowing of the verse admirably expresses the condi- 
tion of the mournful and deserted father." 



132 NOTES 

53. Smintheus. Literally Mouse-god. Apollo was wor- 
shipped under this title in the Troad, as at Smyrna as the 
Locust-god. The old explanation of the name was that Apollo 
gained it by ridding the land of a plague of field-mice. Mr. 
Andrew Lang sees in the title an indication of the existence of 
an old tribal totem or family ancestor. The mouse in Oriental 
countries often personified plague and disease. Herodotus as- 
cribes the destruction of the army of Sennacherib to an army 
of field-mice, which came in the night and gnawed the Assyrian 
bowstrings. In 1 Sam. vi. 4 golden mice are offered by the 
Philistines as a propitiation when visited by the plague. It may 
therefore be that the god has this name only in virtue of his 
function of bringing and removing pestilence, of which this 
book of the Iliad is the best instance. In that case the appeal 
of Chryses gives him this title with peculiar appropriateness. 
(Leaf.) 

54-56. Cilia and Chrysa are towns in the south of the Troad, 
on the gulf of Adramyttium ; Tenedos, an island in the bay of 
Troas. Apollo had temples at these places. 

60. Apollo was believed to resent ill usage of his priests and 
that, too, in the way here represented, viz., by sending plagues. 

61-68. The description of Apollo descending in wrath is cele- 
brated ; the sound of the verse corresponds to the sense. Pope 
has sought by the use of onomatopoeia and alliteration to imi- 
tate the twang of the silver bow and the sound of the flight of the 
arrows. Cowper, in his attempt to reproduce the effect of the 
original, produced a singular line, for which he felt it necessary 
to apologize — 



NOTES 133 

"Clang'd the cord 
Dread-sounding, bounding on the silver bow." 
66. around. Some editions read about. Milton was the 
first to use around in the modern sense. Shakespeare uses 
about; Pope prefers around. 

74. Juno (Hera). The wife of Jupiter ; she sided with the 
Greeks. Coleridge believed that Juno expressed the spirit of 
conservatism. She is persistent, obstinate, acts from no idea, 
but often uses a superficial reasoning, and refers to Fate, with 
which she upbraids Jupiter. 

Thetis, daughter of Nereus and wife of Peleus, was the 
mother of Achilles. 

81-82. spare — war. Notice the muffled rhyme. 

88. Hecatomb means properly, as its etymology indicates, a 
sacrifice of a hundred oxen ; it is frequently used, however, to 
mean a sacrifice of any sort. 

86. ' ' It will be noticed that the soothsaying of the Homeric 
army is very far removed from the elaborate system with which 
we are acquainted in later Greece and Rome. The words of 
Achilles show that it was not confined to the priestly office, 
though the priest, from the relations which he had with his god, 
was likely to be specially favored with communications. In the 
Odyssey Odysseus himself is an interpreter of dreams (XIX., 
535), and Helen explains omens from the fiight of birds (XV., 
172). Kalchas, indeed, seems to be the only case of an augur 
who is not heard of except for his augury. Helenos, who holds 
the corresponding position of soothsayer to the Trojans, is son 



134 NOTES 

of Priam ; we do not hear that he is a priest, and he fights like 
any hero. But indeed it is true that the Homeric priests in no 
case form a caste apart, as they do in most civilized communi- 
ties ; they generally fight with the rest." 

89. aton'd. Observe the original meaning : at — one. 

92. Calchas the wise. Observe this Grecian priest. He has 
no political power, and commands little reverence. In Aga- 
memnon's treatment of him, as well as Chryses, is seen the rela- 
tion of the religion to the government. It was neither master 
nor slave. — E. P. P. "The Mantis or soothsayer, whose skill 
was in most cases supposed to be hereditary, accompanied a 
Greek force on all its expeditions, and no prudent general 
would risk a battle or engage in any important enterprise with- 
out first ascertaining from this authority the will of the gods 
as shadowed out in certain appearances of the sacrifice or some 
peculiarity in the flight of the birds, or some phenomena of the 
heavens." 

117. blameless. Pope, speaking of this adjective, says: "It 
is not only applied to a priest, but to one who, being conscious 
of the truth, prepares with an honest boldness to discover it." 

124. black-ey'd maid. The Greek has been variously ex- 
plained. The choice is thought to lie between "rolling the 
eyes" and "sparkling-eyed." It is not the color of the eye 
that is meant, but vivacity and youthful brightness. 

143. Clytsemnestra. Wife of Agamemnon. Upon Aga- 
memnon's return to Mycene he was murdered by her, and the 
murder was avenged by her son Orestes. 

151-154. Agamemnon's demand for a fresh prize of honor 



NOTES 135 

is not mere selfishness and avarice. It is clear throughout the 
Iliad, says Leaf, that it is in the public gifts, which are the 
signs of preeminence, that the point of honor lies ; to lose such 
a meed of honor is a disgrace as well as a material loss. So 
Achilles himself requires (XXIV., 175) that if he is to give up 
the body of Hector, he shall receive the ransom ; by so doing he 
does not diminish the grace of his act, but only saves himself 
from the reproach of weakness. It is important that this should 
be kept in view throughout the Iliad. 

158-159. During the past years of the siege raids had been 
made upon the neighboring cities of the Troad. 

177. mighty Ajax. The mightiest of the Grecian heroes, 
after Achilles, was the son of Telamon and cousin of Achilles. 
He was of vast stature and strength. 

187. Creta's king. Idomeneus. 

201. Phthia. The chief city of Thessaly, land of Achilles 
and his myrmidons. 

228. monarch's right. 

" There's such divinity doth hedge a king." 
Kings are frequently called Zeus-nurtured. 

231. The original is almost exactly equivalent to the line : 
" Death and destruction dog thee at the heels," 
addressed by Queen Elizabeth to Dorset in King Bichard III. 
239. Myrmidons. The followers of Achilles. 
265. confessed. Revealed. 



136 NOTES 

298. The abusive epithets with which this speech is charged 
are characteristic of the violence of Achilles and the plain 
speaking of Homer, which Pope too often tries to smooth and 
to make respectable. 

309. sacred sceptre. One not belonging to Achilles, but 
which is handed by the herald to the speaker as a sign that he 
is in possession of the house. Tylor observes that in the Ellice 
Islands in the Pacific Ocean the natives "preserved an old 
worm-eaten staff, which in their assemblies the orator held in 
his hand as the sign of having the right to speak. ' ' 

315. laws and justice. Literally precedents. The traditions 
are deposited as a sacred mystery in the keeping of the kings. 
In old Iceland and Ireland law was a tradition preserved entirely 
by the special knowledge of a few men. 

326. golden studs. Nails which fastened the blade to the 
handle. (Leaf.) 

331. Nestor. The orator of the Pylians. Pylos was in the 
Peloponnesus. He is represented as having lived through more 
than two generations and still being a king in the third ; that is, 
between his seventieth and one hundredth years. 

347-357. Pirithous. King of the Lapithse, a mythical race 
of Thessaly, to which belonged Dryas, Ceneus, and Polyphemus 
(not the Cyclops). Theseus, king of Athens, gave friendly aid 
to Pirithous in the war which is referred to (line 357) between 
the Lapithse and the Centaurs. The Centaurs of Homer are 
simply a savage people ; there is no evidence that Homer con- 
ceived them the monsters of Greek fable. 



NOTES 137 

355-357. Notice the substitution of the triplet for the dis- 
tich. 

371. join'd. Not an imperfect rhyme in Pope's time, nor in 
some places in our own. Whittier is true to the New England 
ear when he rhymes line — join. 

412. The sea was regarded by the Greeks as a great cere- 
monial purifier. The meaning is that the Achaians washed in 
the sea so that it might carry off the defilements which were 
typical of their sin. Probably they had during the pestilence 
abstained from ablution, and cast dust on their heads in sign of 
mourning. It was no doubt by a survival from Greek times 
that the Neapolitans used, even down to 1580 a.d., to perform 
once a year a ritual ablution in the sea. (Leaf.) 

421. Talthybius and Eurybates. Legendary names of heralds 
generally. The former was the name of the hereditary heralds 
of Sparta, the latter that of the herald of Odysseus. 

460. parent goddess. He cries, and his goddess-mother hears 

him — 

" Beside her aged father where she sat, 
In the deep ocean-caves." 

It is the original of our own Milton's beautiful invocation in 
" Comus " — the rough simple outline on which he has painted 
with a grace and fulness which make it all his own — 

" Sabrina fair ! 

Listen, where thou art sitting 
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, 

In twisted braids of lilies, knitting 
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair ; 



138 NOTES 

Listen for dear honour's sake, 
Goddess of the silver lake, 
Listen, and save! " 

Thetis hears, and rises on the sea — " like as it were a mist" — 
(the u White Lady of A vend"), caresses him soothingly with 
her hand, as though the stalwart warrior were still a child 
indeed, and asks him the simple question which all mothers, 
goddesses or not, would put into much the same words, — " My 
son, why weepest thou ? " (Collins.) 

461. severe a doom. Achilles had been given the choice of 
a long inglorious life or a brief career full of honor. The doom 
is stated in Book IX. : — 

" My fates long since by Thetis were disclos'd, 
And each alternate, life or fame, propos'd ; 
Here if I stay before the Trojan town, 
Short is my date, but deathless my renown : 
If I return, I quit immortal praise 
For years on years and long-extended days." 

469. aged Ocean. In later mythology, Nereus, but the name 
does not occur in Homer, who has merely u her aged sire." 

478. Thebe. A town in the Troad. 

479. Eetion. The father of Andromache, killed by Achilles. 
515-529. " This strange legend of the binding of Zeus is not 

known from other sources, nor is it again mentioned in Homer, 
although there are numerous allusions to battles and quarrels 
among the gods, and to the previous dynasty of the Titans, who 
are now banished to Tartarus. It is particularly strange to find 
Athene in revolt against her father, in alliance with Hera, and 



NOTES 139 

the primitive earth-power Briareus on the side of Zeus. Nor do 
we find elsewhere in Homer any such monstrous conception as 
that of a being with a hundred arms." (Leaf.) 

519. warlike maid. Minerva, monarch of the main. Nep- 
tune. 

531. Embrace his knees. Suppliants threw themselves at the 
feet of the person to whom the supplication was addressed and 
embraced his knees, at the same time putting the right hand 
beneath his chin. See line 650. It has been suggested that the 
origin of the custom is in the action of the wounded warrior 
who with the left arm clasps the knee of his victor to hamper 
his movement, and with the right hand turns aside his face so 
that he cannot aim the fatal blow until he has heard the appeal 
for mercy. 

555. warm limits. Oceanus, the great stream that flows 
round the world. 

557. Ethiopia's blamelessrace. The ^Ethiopians dwelt on 
the extreme limits of the world, on the stream of Ocean. 
Whenever Homer alludes to the ^Ethiopians, it is always in 
terms of admiration and praise. They are famed for their piety, 
and the gods often make journeys to enjoy their feasts. George 
Eliot suggests that the ^Ethiopians were "blameless" because 
they lived so far off that they had no neighbors to criticise them. 

576. dome. House, or temple. Latin : Domus. 

586, 587, 600-613. A most exact account of the ancient sac- 
rifices : first, the purification by the washing of hands ; second, 
the offering up of prayers ; third, the barley-cakes thrown upou 



140 NOTES 

the victim ; fourth, the manner of killing it, with the head turned 
upwards ; fifth, selecting the thighs and fat for their gods, as 
the best of the sacrifice, and disposing about them pieces cut 
from every part for a representation of the whole ; sixth, the 
libation of wine ; seventh, consuming the thighs in the fire of 
the altar ; eighth, the sacrificers dressing and feasting on the 
rest, with joy and hymns to the gods. 

609. instruments. Five-tined flesh-hooks. 

619. Paeans. Hymns to propitiate the god (originally sung 
in honor of Apollo) ; also a song of thanksgiving. It was sung 
by several persons. 

630. "It was the custom to draw the ships entirely upon 
the shore, and to secure them by long props." (Felton.) 

683-687. Literally rendered the passage reads : " The son of 
Kronos spoke, and bowed his dark brow, and the ambrosial 
locks waved from the king's immortal head ; and he made great 
Olympus shake." It is said (by Strabo) that this description 
inspired Phidias with the conception of his famous statue of 
Zeus at Olympia. 

714. Saturnius. Son of Saturn (Kronos). 

719. consult. How used and how accented ? 

731. An intrusion of Pope's philosophy, not Homer's. 

736. "The scene between Zeus and Hera is typical of the 
spirit in which Homer treats the deities of Olympia. It is, to 
say the least, not reverent, and far removed from any concep- 
tion of primitive piety. It is, indeed, one among many signs 
that the civilization of the heroic age was old and not young — 



NOTES 141 

a civilization which was outgrowing the simple faith of its 
ancestors. It has often been pointed out with truth that the 
humor of Homer is almost entirely confined to the scenes in 
Olympos, which seem to be treated as a fit opportunity for the 
display of passions which would be beneath the dignity of heroes. 
Even in morality the tone of Olympos is distinctly beneath that 
of earth. Mr. Gladstone has well remarked that not one of the 
gods can be called as distinctly good as the swineherd Eumaios. 
741. architect divine. Eabled to be the fashioner of the 
Olympian palaces. 

753. double bowl. Pope evidently has in mind the bowl 
with a cup at each end which was seen upon the table in Queen 
Anne's time. It is, however, a two-handed cup, such as has 
been found at Hissarlik and Mykenai. 

760. Refers to an old fable of Jupiter's hanging up Juno and 
flogging her. 
760-765. 

" Nor was his name unheard or unadored 
In ancient Greece ; and in Ausonian land 
Men called him Mulciber ; and how he fell 
From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove 
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements ; from morn 
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, 
A summer's day ; and with the setting sun 
Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star, 
On Lemnos, the iEgean isle." — Paradise Lost, I., 738. 
765. Sinthians. The inhabitants of Lemnos, an island 
sacred to Hephaistos because of the volcano Mosychlos. Their 
name is derived from their piratical habits. 



142 NOTES 

771. The lame Vulcan, assuming the office of Hebe or Gany- 
mede, stops the heavenly quarrel by making himself the subject 
of merriment. 

BOOK VI 

Of all the Iliad this incomparable book attains the grandest 
heights of narrative and composition, of action and pathos. 
Nowhere else have we so perfect a gallery of types of human 
character ; the two pairs, Hector and Paris, Helen and Androma- 
che, in their truthfulness and contrast, form a group as subtly 
as they are broadly drawn ; while, on the other hand, the 
" battle vignettes" with which the book opens, and the culmi- 
nation of the scenes of war in the meeting of Glaukos and 
Diomedes, set before us with unequalled vivacity the pride of 
life of an heroic age, the refinement of feeling which no fierce- 
ness of fight can barbarize, in the most consummate manner of 
the ' ' great style . ' ' (Leaf. ) 

5. fam'd streams. Homer names the Simois and Xanthus 
(which men call Scamandar). The Simois rose in Mount Ida, 
and the Xanthus near Troy ; they formed a junction before 
they reached the Hellespont. 

7. Ajax. The son of Telamon is always meant by Homer 
when no epithet is used to distinguish him from the other Ajax, 
who was the son of Oileus. Ajax commences his exploits on 
the departure of the gods from the battle. It is observed of this 
hero that he is never assisted by the gods. 

9. Notice the grammatical construction : Falcion is the sub- 
ject of found and hewed. 



NOTES 143 

16. Axylus was distinguished for his hospitality. This trait 
was characteristic of the Oriental nations, and is often alluded 
to by the ancient writers. The right of hospitality often united 
families belonging to different and hostile nations, and was even 
transmitted from father to son. This description is a fine trib- 
ute to the generosity of Axylus. (Felton.) 

24. His faithful servant. Calesius was the driver of Axylus's 
chariot. 

28. Naiad. The fountain -nymph Abarbarea. 

36. hell. The underworld. 

37. Teucer. Son of Telemon and step-brother of Ajax, re- 
nowned for his archery. 

38. Nestor's son. Antilochus. — _ 
41. Pedasus. A town of Mysia. 

46. Spartan spear. In the hands of Menelaus. 

49. tamarisk. Not a large tree, as Pope imagines. In the 
original the horses stumble in a tamarisk's bough and so snap 
short the pole of the chariot. 

61-62. told. Counted ; tellan, to count. Coined money was 
not in use at this time. The gifts for ransom are bronze and 
" smithied iron." 

80. Pope commenting upon the fact that Agamemnon's 
cruelty is not blamed by Homer ascribes it to the uncivilized 
manners of those times. Homer very rarely expresses any 
moral judgment upon the action of his characters. The histori- 
cal books of the Old Testament abound in similar cruelties to 
conquered enemies. 



144 NOTES 

88. This maxim of war, "To the victor belong the spoils," 
is very naturally introduced. According to Dacier it was for 
such lessons as these that Alexander so much esteemed Homer. 

91. Helenus. Son of Priam. 

108. our mother. Hecuba. 

113. mantle. Helenus directs Hector to enter the city and 
cause the Trojan women to assemble in the temple of Minerva 
with a robe or peplos for a propitiatory offering, and to promise 
a sacrifice if Athene will stay the victorious progress of Aga- 
memnon. In one of the scenes portrayed in the frieze of the 
Parthenon a peplos is solemnly brought to the goddess by the 
city of Athens. 

145. Hector's shield reaches from the ankles to the neck. 
It was composed of layers of ox-hide covered with metal. The 
hides were turned up at the outer edge of the shield to form a 
rim and so prevent any friction against the edge of the metal 
facing. Hector walks with his shield hanging at his back. 

148. u The episode of Glaucus and Diomedes is remarkable 
in several respects. At first sight it seems improbable that two 
combatants, eager to engage, should hold a dialogue of this 
description ; and accordingly we find a writer in the Edinburgh 
Beview objecting to and ridiculing it as in the highest degree 
absurd. It must be remembered that Homer is describing the 
manners of an ancient heroic age and not the nineteenth cen- 
tury. His battles are not like those of Waterloo and Austerlitz, 
the result of scientific calculation, and dependent on the move- 
ments of masses of men, giving but little scope to individual 
prowess and, above all, are not decided by powder and bullet. 



NOTES 145 

They are the battles of an age of simplicity, in which the per- 
sonal valour of the chieftains bore a distinguished share. It 
happened not infrequently that opposing chieftains singled each 
other out and fought hand to hand, after holding parley and 
making various interrogations of each other. This has indeed 
occurred in the skirmishing warfare of the last Greek Revolu- 
tion. We have before adverted to the right of hospitality. It 
cannot be deemed improbable that two warriors, whose fathers 
had exchanged courtesies and pledges of this description, should 
meet on the field of battle and upon inquiry find themselves 
thus bound together. The peculiar sacredness of this tie would 
cause them at once to suspend hostilities and perhaps exchange 
tokens of friendly recognition. On the whole this episode, so 
far from being an unnatural and improbable excrescence, is a 
relief to the carnage and confusion of the battle and presents a 
beautiful picture of that feature of ancient society which has 
already been the subject of remark." (Felton.) 

150. mark'd for war, i.e. for single combat, as in " Sohrab 
and Rustum." 

161. The home of Lycurgus was in Thrace ; ' ' Nyssa's sacred 
grove' 1 is not geographical. He drove Bacchus, Dionysos, and 
his followers (Bacchantes) from his domains and was punished 
by Zeus with blindness. The "consecrated spears" (line 165) 
should be "wands" or staves wreathed with ivy, which were 
carried by the Msenads, or Bacchantes. 

191. ^olian. Son of JEolus. 

193. Ephyre. The early name of Corinth. 

201. Antea. The wife of Prcetus. 



146 NOTES 

208. " Proetus, unwilling himself to violate the laws of hos- 
pitality by killing a guest, sends him to Antea's father, Iobates, 
who likewise after entertaining Bellerophon shrinks from slay- 
ing him and sends him into perils which he expects to prove 
fatal." 

210. This passage raises the important question of the knowl- 
edge of writing in Homeric times. It seems impossible to deny 
that such a knowledge is implied. The "folded tablet" seems 
to show that the message might have been intelligible to Beller- 
ophon if it had not been concealed; the "many deadly" (lit- 
erally soul-destroying) "things" implies a real message, not a 
mere picture or conventional sign of a murder or the like. It 
is further clear that the use of such a letter of introduction was 
regular, for the king asks to see it as a matter of course. This 
is, in fact, just an example of the way in which we might sup- 
pose writing to have been introduced into Greece. It seems to 
be regarded as a strange accomplishment, for the adjective 
"soul-destroying" implies a sort of magical power, such as 
always is ascribed to writing by savages who are not practically 
acquainted with it. It is known only to a royal family con- 
nected with Asia Minor, and it is to Asia Minor that we are 
being more and more led by recent researches to look for the 
introduction of the higher culture into Greece. There is there- 
fore no reason for doubting that the knowledge of the art had 
gone so far as this passage indicates long before the Dorian 
invasion. This, of course, is far from justifying us in suppos- 
ing that an Achaian poet would be able to use writing for the 
composition of a long poem, though it does show that this is not 



NOTES 147 

impossible. If we ask what sort of writing this could have been, 
we naturally think of the Cypriote syllabary. It is hardly 
likely that the Phoenician alphabet, the foundation of later 
Greek writing, had been yet introduced, for the traces of Phoe- 
nician influence on the Achaian world are very few and slight, 
just as the mention of the Phoenicians in the Iliad is rare. The 
Cypriote syllabary, on the other hand, must have been known 
at an early date throughout Asia Minor, if Professor Sayce is 
right in recognizing it on whorls from Hissarlik. We may 
thus provisionally suppose it to be alluded to here in the hope 
of further discoveries to elucidate this all-important point. The 
other alternative is that the writing may have been Egyptian, 
for it is daily becoming more clear that the Achaians had been 
acquainted with Egypt from a date long anterior to the Homeric 
poems, and it is likely enough that they may have picked up 
some knowledge of the use of hieroglyphs. In fact, a few 
Egyptian inscriptions are the only traces of writing which have 
as yet been found in Mykenai. 

215. According to the ancient custom of hospitality the guest 
was entertained before he was questioned as to his name and 
message. Alkinoos entertained Odysseus a whole day before 
asking him his name. 

219. Chimaera. The only instance in Homer of the fabulous 
mixed monsters of later Greek mythology. 

226. prodigies. Portents. 

227. Solymaean crew. The primitive inhabitants of Lykia, 
who were driven by the Lycians (from Crete) into the mountains. 

229. Amazons. A race of warrior women. 



148 NOTES 

242. Homer names them : Isandros, Hippolochos, and 
Laodameia. 

247. Aleian field. The "Plain of Wandering" was believed 
to be in Cilicia. The tradition evidently was that Bellerophon 
became mad. 

250. Phoebe's dart. Sudden death. Women died painlessly 
when smitten by Phoebe (Diana) . 

251. He died in battle. 

274. Tyrian dye. Royal purple. 

277-278. Refers to the expedition of the "Seven against 
Thebes." 

290. Leaf remarks: "This curious ending to a delightful 
episode seems almost like a burlesque, and is hard to understand. 
Elsewhere in Homer the only characters treated with distinctly 
humorous intention are the gods." Pope mistranslates in line 
291 when Homer says that " Zeus took from Glaukos his wits." 

297. Scaean gate. The great gate of the city through which 
the Trojans went forth to battle. 

298. beech-tree. Oak-tree in Homer. 

314. Laodice. Daughter of Hecuba. 

318. " There is a mournfulness in the interview between the 
hero and his mother which is deeply interesting. Her urging 
him to take wine and his refusal were natural and simple inci- 
dents which heighten the effect of the scene." (Felton.) 

329-333. This homily upon temperance belongs to Pope not 
to Homer. The original has " bring me no honey-hearted wine, 



NOTES 149 

my mother, lest thou cripple me of my courage, and I be forget- 
ful of my might." 

362-363. Tyre and Sidon were famous for works in gold, 
embroidery, etc., and for whatever pertained to magnificence 
and luxury. 

371. Palladian dome. Dome (or temple) of Pallas (Mi- 
nerva) . 

372. Theano. Sister of Hecuba, and daughter of Cisseus, a 
prince of Thrace. 

395. ten cubits. Sixteen feet {eleven cubits, as in Homer) 
was not an unusual length for a spear. Xenophon speaks of 
one fifteen cubits, or twenty-two feet. 

396. ringlets. Meant to hold the head of the spear in place 
and prevent the wood from splitting. 

399-401. "The employment in which Hector finds Paris 
engaged is extremely characteristic." (Felton.) Paris carries 
his foppish airs into the affairs of war. 

403. instructs their hands. Working at the loom. 

466. second joy. That is, after her husband. 

467. Astyanax. The only son of Hector. The name means 
u defender of the city," as Hector means " protector." See 
lines 501-503. 

491. Here we are introduced to the second female character 
in the poem. It is as the wife and mother that Andromache 
charms us. It has been remarked that Homer never applies to 
her any epithet implying personal attractions, though all his 
translators, Lord Derby included, have been tempted to do so. 



150 NOTES 

Hector meets her at the Scsean gate with the nurse and the 
child. The father looks silently on his boy and smiles; An- 
dromache in tears clings to her husband and makes a pathetic 
appeal to him not to be too prodigal of a life which is so dear 
to his wife and child. He is now "her father, mother, brother, 
husband," — her all. "The incidents which follow are simple 
but requisite. Hector wishes to take in his arms his beloved 
son ; but the child, terrified by the glittering armor and the 
waving crest, clings to the bosom of the nurse. This calls a 
smile upon the countenance of the parents, who are thus, by a 
happy stroke of nature, made to forget, for a single moment, 
the gloomy state of public affairs in affection for their offspring. 
Hector lays upon the ground his shining helmet, caresses his 
son, and utters a prayer becoming a patriot and warrior. He 
places the child in the arms of his wife, who receives him upon 
her 'fragrant bosom,' smiling tearfully. This is one of the 
most beautiful expressions to be found in any language. It is 
concise yet distinct, and presents a perfect image of mingled 
gentleness and sadness. It fills the imagination and touches 
the heart." (Felton.) 

528-530. Pope amplifies Homer, who has "burnt him in 
his inlaid armour and raised a barrow over him ; and all about 
were elm-trees planted by the mountain nymphs, daughters of 
aegis-bearing Zeus." It was a universal custom among the 
primitive Aryan nations to bury a warrior's arms with his dead 
body. Swords have been found in graves at Mykenai. 

539. Hippoplacia. More correctly Hyppoplacia, another name 
for Phoebe. 



NOTES 151 

583. Hyperia's spring. Homer says "from fount Messeis 
or Hyperia." The former is in Laconia, the latter in Thessaly. 
1 ' The mention of these with Argos may perhaps indicate Mene- 
laos of Sparta, Achilles of Thessaly, and Agamemnon of Argos 
as the three probable masters of Andromache." (Doderlein.) 
Later tradition has it that Andromache became the prize of 
Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. 

676-679. Hector resumes his hope of success and his spirit is 
roused again as he approaches the field of battle. The close of 
the book in Homer is much stronger than in Pope's poor para- 
phrase. u All this will we make good hereafter, if Zeus ever 
vouchsafe us to set before the heavenly gods, that are for ever- 
lasting, the cup of deliverance in our halls, when we have chased 
out of Troyland the well-greaved Achaians. ' ' 

BOOK XXII 

The preceding book closed with Achilles in pursuit of Apollo, 
who had assumed the disguise of the Trojan Agenor in order to 
draw Achilles away from the field of battle, that the Trojans 
might have an opportunity to retreat into the city. 

6. roof of shields. The Greeks held their shields above their 
heads for protection against missiles thrown from the walls. 

30. Homer makes Achilles say to Apollo in wrath : " Yerily, 
I would avenge me on thee had I but the power." 

39. Orion's dog. Sirius in the constellation cants major, so 
called from its proximity to the constellation Orion. When 
Sirius rose with the sun in summer it was supposed to exert an 



152 NOTES 

evil influence, to cause fevers, etc. Hence this time of year 
was called the canicular or dog days. Weighs means presses 
to its close. 

43. " With how much dreadful Pomp is Achilles here intro- 
duced ? How noble, and in what bold colours hath he drawn 
the blazing of his Arms, the Rapidity of his Advance, the Terror 
of his Appearance, the Desolation around him, but above all the 
certain Death attending all his motions and his very looks ; 
what a crowd of terrible Ideas in this one Simile ! But immedi- 
ately after this follows the moving Image of the two aged 
Parents, trembling, weeping, and imploring their Son ! This is 
succeeded again by the dreadful, gloomy picture of Hector, all 
on fire, obstinate, bent on Death, and expecting Achilles, ad- 
mirably painted in the Simile of the Snake rolled up in his 
Den and collecting his Poisons. And indeed thro' the whole 
Book the wonderful Contrast and Opposition of the Moving and 
of the Terrible is perpetually kept each heightening the other. 
I can't find words to express how so great Beauties affect me." 
(Pope.) 

45. obtests. Entreats. 

64. mother. Homer names her Laothoe. She is the daugh- 
ter of Altes and a wife of Priam. This passage is quoted as a 
genuine case of polygamy, but among the Trojans only ; nothing 
of the sort is even hinted at among the Homeric Greeks. The 
deaths of Polydore and Lycaon are described at the end of Book 
XX. and the beginning of XXL 

69. Lelegia's throne. The Leleges were supposed to live on 
the coast of Asia Minor and the islands of the iEgean. 



NOTES 153 

71. Stygian coast. The underworld, inhabited by the spirits 
of the dead. 

112. The zone unbrac'd. Hecuba unfastened the brooch by 
which her robe was fastened over the right shoulder. This 
would allow the upper fold of the front of the robe to fall so 
that the breast would be shown. 

132. The poison of snakes was supposed to be derived from 
herbs which they ate when about to attack. 

137. This speech of Hector shows the fluctuation of his 
mind, with much discernment on the part of the poet. He 
breaks out, after having apparently meditated a return to the 
city. But the imagined reproaches of Polydamas, and the an- 
ticipated scorn of the Trojans, forbid it. He soliloquizes upon 
the possibility of coming to terms with Achilles, and offering 
him large concessions ; but the character of Achilles precludes 
all hope of reconciliation. It is a fearful crisis with him, and 
his mind wavers, as if presentiment of his approaching doom. 
(Felton.) 

140. When the Greeks were fighting for the corpse of Patro- 
clus, Achilles appeared and, shouting, frightened the Trojans. 
Polydamas advised to retire within the city for the night, but 
Hector favored camping on the field, and his command was 
obeyed. 

157. terms of peace. They are stated in lines 158-163. 

158. Helen and the treasure that was carried away with her. 

175. The Pelian jav'lin. Patroclus when putting on the 
armor of Achilles "seized two strong lances that fitted his 



154 NOTES 

grasp, only he took not the spear of the noble son of iEacus, 
heavy and huge and stalwart, that none other of the Achaians 
could wield, but Achilles alone availed to wield it : even the 
ashen Pelian spear that Chiron gave to his father dear, from a 
peak of Pelian, to be the death of warriors. " 

180. Hector's sudden flight at the approach of Achilles is 
one of the most extraordinary incidents of the Iliad. Says Mr. 
Andrew Lang : " In a saga or a chanson de geste, in an Arthu- 
rian romance, in a Border ballad, in whatever poem or tale 
answers in our Northern literature, however feebly, to Homer, 
this flight round the walls of Troy would be an absolute impos- 
sibility. Under the eyes of his father, his mother, his country- 
men, Hector flies — the gallant Hector, ' a very perfect, gentle 
knight' — from the onset of a single foe." But, Mr. Lang 
adds: "Homer's world, Horner's chivalry, Homer's ideas of 
knightly honor, were all unlike those of the Christian and the 
Northern world." 

Professor Mahaffy, on the other hand, regards this slur and 
other slurs on Hector's courage as changes wrought by alien 
hands in the original poem. "Why," he asks, u is he so im- 
portant all through the plot of the poem ? Why is his death by 
Achilles made an achievement of the highest order ? Why are 
the chiefs who at one time challenge and worst him, at another 
quaking with fear at his approach ? Simply because in the 
original plan of the Iliad he was a great warrior, and because 
these perpetual defeats by Diomede and Ajax, this avoidance of 
Agamemnon, this swaggering and i hectoring,' which we now 
find in him, were introduced by the enlargers and interpolators 



NOTES 155 

in order to enhance the merits of their favorites at his expense." 
(Maxwell and Chubb.) 

189. fore-right. Eight to the fore, straight ahead. 

193. fig-trees. They have been mentioned in Book VI. as a 
landmark. The wagon road runs round the wall at a short dis- 
tance from it. Smoke. Raise a dust by their speed. 

201. marble cisterns. Contrast this with Homer's u broad 
beautiful washing-troughs of stone." 

241. Tritonia. Trito-born, an epithet of Athene (Minerva). 

" Tritonia's airy shrine adorns 
Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave." — Byron. 

247. vapour. Scent. 

251. Dardan. Dardan is frequently equivalent to Trojan or 
Ilian. The Dardanians (usually of wider designation than 
Trojan) were led by iEneas. 

257. u The inability to catch and escape is vividly compared 
to the feeling of being bound to pursue, and yet of being rooted 
to the ground, which is so common in nightmare." Cowper 
remarks that "the numbers in the original are so constructed 
as to express the painful struggle that characterizes such a 
dream." 

276. hell receives the weight. Hector is doomed to Hades. 
291. Deiphobus. Minerva assumes the form of Hector's 
brother, son of Priam and Hecuba. 

293. show. Appearance. 

294. Mr. Lang says : " It is remarkable that when the true 



156 NOTES 

poet had to pit against each other a courteous and patriotic 
warrior like Hector and a young hero who, like Achilles, is 
really fighting only for his own hand and his private passion, he 
should have made Hector check our sympathy by his flight, and 
Achilles even more unsympathetic by the treacherous aid of 
Athene than by his own relentless and savage revenge." To a 
Greek audience, Mr. Leaf thinks : " The presence of the gods on 
Achilles' side was not so much a mere extraneous aid as a tan- 
gible sign that Achilles was, after all, fighting the great fight of 
Hellenism against barbarism ; it is a reminder that the action 
on earth is but a reflexion of the will of heaven, and exalts 
rather than belittles those to whom the help is given." " It is 
a cardinal rule with Homer," says Mr. Gladstone, "that no 
considerable Greek chieftain is ever slain in fair fight by a 
Trojan." 

348. In Book XVIII. , Thetis, Achilles's mother, had told him 
that straightway after Hector's death was death appointed unto 
him. In Book XIX. , his horse Xanthus, gifted for the moment 
with human speech and the power of prophecy, had foretold 
that his master's death-day was nigh at hand. Mr. John Add- 
ington Symonds thinks that the knowledge of his own approach- 
ing end is the key to the terrible ferocity displayed by the Greek 
chieftain. "Stung as he is," says Mr. Symonds, "by remorse 
and by the sorrow for Patroclus, which does not unnerve him, 
but rather kindles his whole spirit to a flame, we are prepared 
to see him fierce even to cruelty. But when we know that in 
the midst of the carnage he is himself moving a dying man, 
when we remember that he is sending his slain foes like mes- 






NOTES 157 

sengers before his face to Hades, when we keep the warning 
words of Thetis and Xanthus in our minds, then the grim frenzy 
of Achilles becomes dignified. The world is in a manner over 
for him, and he appears the incarnation of disdainful anger and 
revengeful love, the conscious scourge of God and instrument of 
destiny." 

391. Jove's bird. The eagle. 

395. fourfold cone. Four-plated helmet. 

397. Vulcanian frame. Forged by Yulcan. 

405-406. Achilles says, lamenting the death of Patroclus 
(Book XVIIL) : " Hector that slew him hath stripped from him 
the armour great and fair, a wonder to behold, that the gods 
gave to Peleus." 

436. prevalence. Efficacy. 

437. Mr. Leaf interprets the line: "As surely as I cannot 
eat thee myself so surely the dogs shall eat thee." 

452. The prophecy is fulfilled when Achilles is killed by a 
poisoned arrow shot by Paris and guided by Apollo. 

466. The admiration expressed for the beauty of the corpse 
is thoroughly Greek. 

467. The mutilation of the body is palliated by the wide- 
spread belief that the spirit is deprived of the power to revenge 
when the body is mutilated. 

494. The full text of this song of triumph is : " Great glory 
have we won ; we have slain the noble Hector, unto whom the 
Trojans prayed throughout their city, as he had been a god." 



158 NOTES 

610. This notion of astrology is, of course, Pope's, not 
Homer's. 

640. The idea seems to be that an orphan is deprived of the 
favor of the gods and may be insulted with impunity. This 
idea still lives in Albania, where at the marriage ceremony the 
marriage loaf must be baked by a maid whose parents are alive 
or she will bring misfortune to the wedded pair. 

BOOK XXIV 

"The supreme beauty of the last book of the Iliad, and the 
divine pathos of the dying fall, in which the tale of strife and 
blood passes away, are above all words of praise. The meeting 
of Priam and Achilles, the kissing of the deadly hands, and the 
simplicity of infinite sadness over man's fate in Achilles' reply, 
mark the high tide of a great epoch of poetry. In them we 
feel that the whole range of suffering has been added to the 
unsurpassed presentment of action which, without this book, 
might seem to be the crowning glory of the Iliad." (Leaf.) 

1. games. The funeral games in honor of Patroclus were 
described in Book XXIII. 

20. Achilles wanders aimlessly. 

25. monument. A funeral mound. The bones of Patroclus 
were placed in the tent of Achilles. 

33. golden shield. Literally, golden segis : a perplexing 
passage, for the aegis belongs to Zeus, not to Apollo. 

34. Hermes. This is the first allusion to Mercury as a 
thieving god. 



NOTES 159 

37. Empress Juno (Hera). 

38-41. This is the sole occasion in the Iliad where any allu- 
sion is made to the story of the contest of beauty and the judg- 
ment of Paris, which led to the flight of Helen. 

41. Cyprian queen. So called from the island where Yenus 
was first worshipped. 

56-57. Cowper explains that shame is a man's blessing if he 
is properly influenced by it, or his curse in its consequences if 
he is deaf to its dictates. Mr. Leaf says that the Greek word 
translated shame expresses on the one hand the respect for the 
opinion of men which we call sense of honor ; on the other, it 
can stand for the wrong shame or want of proper boldness, 
such as prevents a man from properly doing his work in the 
world. 

96. azure queen. Thetis. 

99. Iris. Goddess of the rainbow ; the messenger of Jupiter, 
as Mercury is of all Olympus. 

103. Samos. Should be -Samothrace. 

108. This remarkable simile is badly translated. The origi- 
nal reads: "And she sped to the bottom like a weight of lead 
that, mounted on horn of a field-ox, goeth down, bearing death, 
to the ravenous fishes." It would appear that a little tube or 
horn was passed over the line just above the hook, to prevent 
the fish biting it through, and some molten lead was run into 
the tube to sink it. 

112. blue-hair'd sisters. The Nereids. 



160 NOTES 

146. glory. The glory accorded to Achilles is the receipt of 
gifts wherein the heroic point of honor lies. 

285. chargers. Large dishes. 

289-290. Homer says more clearly: " Yet not that even did 
the old man grudge from his halls, for he was exceeding fain at 
heart to ransom his dear son." 

311. erring. Errare, to wander. 

322. This is the only time when Troilus, a favorite charac- 
ter in the later tale of Troy, is mentioned in the Iliad. 

336. ringlets. Through which the reins were passed. 

346. The car conveying the presents was drawn by mules ; 
the other, in which Priam and the herald rode, was drawn by 
horses. The Mysians of northern Asia Minor were famous for 
breeding mules. 

359. Zeus. 

361. The eagle. 

375. the mid pavement. That is, in the midst of the court, 
because the altar of Zeus is there. 

390. Percnos. The black eagle. 

393. dexter. Appearing on the right. 

418. incumbent. Besting upon. 

430. silver spring. Homer says: "At the river," that is, 
Scamander. 

431. Ilus' ancient marble. The barrow or tomb of Ilus, 
grandfather of Priam. 



NOTES 161 

457. lines. Lineaments, features. 

552. Pelides' lofty tent. The tent of Achilles is described 
as though it were a palace. It has a hall with fore court, vesti- 
bule, and colonnades, and is at times spoken of as a house. 
This indicates a complete difference of view from the rest of the 
Iliad. 

572. his son. Neoptolemus ; Alexander the Great claimed 
descent from Achilles through this son. 

586. Of these lines Pope writes : "I fancy this Interview be- 
tween Priam and Achilles would furnish an admirable subject 
for a Painter, in the Surprize of Achilles and the other specta- 
tors, the attitude of Priam and the sorrow in the countenance of 
this unfortunate king. That circumstance of Priam kissing the 
Hands of Achilles is inimitably fine ; ' he kissed,' says Homer, 
1 the Hands of Achilles, those terrible, murderous Hands that 
had robbed him of so many Sons.' By these two words the 
Poet recalls to our mind all the noble Actions performed by 
Achilles in the whole I lias ; and at the same time strikes us 
with the utmost Compassion for this unhappy king who is re- 
duced so low as to be obliged to kiss those Hands that had slain 
his subjects and ruined his kingdom and family." — Pope's 
Homer, 1st edition, 6, 211. 

598-633. u The whole scene between Achilles and Priam, 
When the latter comes to the Greek camp for the purpose of re- 
deeming the body of Hector, is at once the most profoundly 
skilful, and yet the simplest and most affecting passage in the 
Iliad. . . . Observe the exquisite taste of Priam in occupying 
the mind of Achilles, from the outset, with the image of his 



162 NOTES 

father ; in gradually introducing the parallel of his own situa- 
tion ; and, lastly, mentioning Hector's name when he perceives 
that the hero is softened, and then only in such a manner as to 
flatter the pride of the conqueror. . . . The whole passage de- 
fies translation, for there is that about the Greek which has no 
name, but which is of so fine and ethereal a subtlety that it can 
only be felt in the original, and is lost in an attempt to transfuse 
it into another language." — H. N. Coleridge. 

745. manes. Belongs to Roman mythology and means the 
spirits of the dead regarded as divinities of the household. Here 
it is the spirit of Patroclus. 

757-759. As Niobe ate in her extreme grief, and she is the 
pattern of faithful sorrow, you may well eat without appearing 
hard of heart. 

762. Cynthia. Diana, so called from Mount Cynthus, in the 
island of Delos, where she was born. 

769. inhume. Bury. 

773. herself a rock. Pausanias says of the figure of Niobe 
on Mount Cipylas near Smyrna : " The rock, seen from near at 
hand, is a precipice, with no resemblance to a woman, mourning 
or otherwise ; but if you go farther off you can fancy you are 
looking at a woman, downcast, and bathed in tears. 1 ' Visitors 
to Smyrna are still shown this figure rudely carved by human 
hands. 

775. Acheloiis. A river of Lydia. 

776. wat'ry fairies. Fairies and their rings belong to mod- 
ern tradition. It is the water nymphs of whom Homer speaks. 



NOTES 163 

862. Xanthus. Scamander. 

870. Cassandra. Daughter of Priam, and gifted with pro- 
phetic powers. 

900. melancholy choir. The professional mourners. 

906. "The affection of Hector for his wife, no less distin- 
guished than the passion of Achilles for his friend, has made 
the Trojan prince rather than his Greek rival the hero of 
modern romance." (A. J. Symonds.) 

934-935. These two lines are quoted from Congreve, to 
whom Pope dedicated this translation. 

962. " Helen is throughout the Iliad a genuine lady, grace- 
ful in motion and speech, noble in her associations, full of 
remorse for a fault for which higher powers seem responsible, 
yet grateful and affectionate towards those with whom that 
fault had connected her. I have always thought the following 
speech, in which Helen laments Hector and hints at her own 
invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the 
sweetest passage in the poem." (Henry Nelson Coleridge.) 

1015-1016. Literally translated the last line of the Iliad 
reads: "Thus held they funeral for Hector, tamer of horses," 
an ending worthy in its majestic simplicity of the praise with 
which Cowper takes leave of a task to which he had been in- 
debted for the smooth and easy flight of many thousand hours. 
" I cannot take my leave of this noble poem," he says, " with- 
out expressing how much I am struck with this plain conclusion 
of it. It is like the exit of a great man out of company whom 
he has entertained magnificently ; neither pompous nor familiar ; 



164 NOTES 

not contemptuous, yet without much ceremony. I recollect 
nothing, among the works of mere man, that exemplifies so 
strongly the true style of great antiquity." 

THE TIME OF THE ACTION 

I., 71. The action of the Iliad occupies altogether fifty-one 
days, the distribution of which will show the argument of the 
poem. The plague rages nine days ; in the tents take place the 
quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, and the appeal of 
the latter to his mother, Thetis. The return of Zeus is expected 
on the twelfth day from that date ; on the twenty- first day, 
therefore, he gives the promise to honor Achilles by the defeat 
of the Greeks, upon which the further action of the poem 
hinges. On the morning of the twenty-second, after the agita- 
tion caused by the dream of Agamemnon, commences the first 
battle, which, with the single combat between Paris and Mene- 
laus, and that between Hector and Ajax, carries on the poem 
as far as Book VII. , 440. On the next morning a truce is made, 
and the burial of the dead and the construction, on the Greek 
side, of a fortification in front of their camp, occupy that and 
the following day. On the twenty-fifth, therefore, Zeus holds 
the council in which he prohibits divine help from the war 
altogether, and the second battle is begun and ended at night 
with the defeat of the Greeks. The night is then taken up by 
an embassy to Achilles and by a raid on the Trojan camp, in 
both of which measures Odysseus bears a principal part. The 
twenty-sixth is the day of the third battle, which commences 
evenly, but is continued by the storming of the Greek rampart 



NOTES 165 

(Book XII. ), the attack on the fleet (Books XIII. -XV.), its 
rescue by Patroclus (Book XVI.), the struggle over that hero's 
body (Book XVII.), and the final retreat of Troy before the 
unarmed Achilles (Book XVIII.). On the twenty-seventh day 
Achilles receives his armor and is reconciled to Agamemnon, 
and before the evening has completed his revenge with the 
death of Hector in the fourth battle of the poem. The next 
two days are occupied in the preparation of the pyre of Patro- 
clus, in the burning of his body, and in the games held in his 
honor. For eleven days more Achilles continues his insults to 
the body of Hector, so that it is not till the evening of the for- 
tieth day that Priam comes to the camp for its recovery. On 
the morning of the forty-first he returns with the corpse and 
with the promise of a twelve days' truce. Mne days are then 
occupied in laments and preparations. On the tenth the pyre 
of Hector is built and burned, and on the eleventh, or fifty-first 
of the whole action, his bones are interred and the mound above 
them heaped. The night of that day is spent in the funeral 
feast, and the war is expected to recommence on the next 
morning. — J. G. Cordery^ 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Achelous, 162. 

Achilles' wrath, 129. 

.Eolian, 145. 

^Ethiopia's blameless race, 139. 

Aged Ocean, 138. 

Ajax, 135, 142. 

Aleian field, 148. 

Amazons, 147. 

Andromache, 149. 

Antea, 145. 

Architect divine, 141. 

Argos, 131. 

Aronnd, 133. 

Astyanax, 149. 

Aton'd, 134. 

Atrides, 130. 

Axylus, 143. 

Azure queen, 159. 

Beech-tree, 148. 
Black-ey'd maid, 134. 
Blameless, 134. 
Blue-hair'd sisters, 159. 
Brother-kings, 131. 

Calchas the wise, 134. 
Cassandra, 163. 



Chargers, 160. 
Chimsera, 147. 
Chryseis, 131. 
Cilia and Chrysa, 132. 
Clytsemnestra, 134. 
Confess'd, 135. 
Consult, 140. 
Creta's king, 135. 
Cynthia, 162. 
Cyprian queen, 159. 

Dardan, 155. 
Deiphobus, 155. 
Dexter, 160. 
Dome, 139. 
Double bowl, 141. 

Eetion, 138. 

Embrace his knees, 139. 
Empress Juno, 159. 
Ephyre, 145. 
Erring, 160. 
Eurybates, 137. 

Fair, 131. 

Faithful servant, 143. 

Fam'd streams, 142. 



167 



168 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Fig-trees, 155. 
Fore-right, 155. 
Fourfold cone, 157. 

Games, 158. 

Glaucus and Diomedes, 144. 

Glory, 160. 

Golden shield, 158. 

Golden studs, 136. 

Hecatomb, 133. 

Hector's shield, 144. 

Helen, 163. 

Helenus, 144. 

Hell, 143. 

Hell receives the weight, 155. 

Hermes, 158. 

Herself a rock, 162. 

Hippoplacia, 150. 

Hyperia's spring, 151. 

Iliad, 129. 

Ilus' ancient marble, 160. 

Incumbent, 160. 

Inhume, 162. 

Instructs their hands, 149. 

Instruments, 140. 

Iris, 159. 

Joined, 137. 
Jove's bird, 157. 
Juno, 133. 

King of men, 130. 



Laodice, 148. 
Latona's son, 130. 
Laws and justice, 136. 
Lelegia's throne, 152. 
Lines, 161. 

Manes, 162. 
Marble cisterns, 155. 
Mark'd for war, 145. 
Melancholy choir, 163. 
Mid pavement, 160. 
Monarch's right, 135. 
Monument, 158. 
Mother (Laothoe) , 152. 
Myrmidons, 135. 

Naiad, 143. 
Neoptolemus, 161. 
Nestor, 136. 
Nestor's son, 143. 
Niobe, 162. 

Obtests, 152. 
Orion's dog, 151. 

Paeans, 140. 
Palladian dome, 149. 
Parent goddess, 137. 
Pedasus, 143. 
Pelian jav'lin, 153. 
Pelides' lofty tent, 161. 
Percnos, 160. 
Phoebe's dart, 148. 
Phoebus, 131. 
Phthia, 135. 



INDEX TO NOTES 



169 



Pirithous, 136. 
Pluto, 130. 

Poison of snakes, 153. 
Prevalence, 157. 
Prodigies, 147. 

Reign, 130. 
Rev'rend priest, 130. 
Ringlets, 149, 160. 
Roof of shields, 151. 

Sacred sceptre, 136. 
Sacrifices, 139. 
Samos, 159. 
Saturnius, 140. 
Scsean gate, 148. 
Sceptre and the laurel 

130. 
Sea, 137. 
Second joy, 149. 
Show, 155. 
Silver spring, 160. 
Sinthians, 141. 
Smintheus, 132. 
Smoke, 155. 
Solymsean crew, 147. 
Soothsaying, 133. 
Spartan spear, 143. 



Stygian coast, 153. 

Talthybius, 137. 
Tamarisk, 143. 
Ten cubits, 149. 
Terms of peace, 153. 
Teucer, 143. 
Theano, 149. 
Thebe, 133. 
Told, 143. 
Tritonia, 155. 
Troilus, 160. 
Tyre and Sidon, 149. 
Tyrian dye, 148. 

Unburied dead, 130. 

Vapour, 155. 
Vulcanian frame, 157. 

Warlike maid, 139. 

Warm limits, 139. 

Wat'ry fairies, 162. 

Writing in Homeric times, 146. 

Xanthus, 163. 

Zone unbraced, 153. 



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ish Armada," R. L. Stevenson's " Personal Experience and Review," John 
Morley's " Macaulay," Matthew Arnold's " On the Study of Celtic Literature," 
James Bryce's " The Strength of American Democracy," John Ruskin's " The 
Crown of Wild Olive," and J. H. Newman's " What is a University? " 

It is of too recent publication to have been in class-room use, but will be 
introduced at the beginning of another school year in a number of schools. 



" It is well conceived, and the selections are excellent for their purpose." — 
Prof. Felix E. Schelling, University of Pennsylvania. 

"The selections seem to be chosen with good judgment, and the notes to 
be careful and instructive." — Prof. Fred P. Emery, Dartmouth College, 
Hanover, N.H. 

" I am even more pleased with the book than I had expected to be. ... I 
shall certainly try to introduce the book into one of my classes next fall." — 
Miss Anna H. Smith, High School, Binghamton, N.Y. 

" ' Studies in Structure and Style ' is, I think, the best book of the kind that 
has yet appeared, and I shall be glad to recommend it to my classes."— Prof . 
Edwin M. Hopkins, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan. 

" I have delayed to acknowledge Brewster's ' Studies in Structure and Style,' 
which you kindly sent me, until I could examine it with some care. That exami- 
nation is very satisfactory. The selections are well chosen, and the comments 
both on their structure and their style are distinctly valuable. The work can 
hardly fail to be of large service." — MiSS E. G. WillCOX, Wellesley College, Mass. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 



MAI 27.. 1899 



